UC-NRLF 


SANTA  FE. 


READING  ROOM. 

Rules  Governing  the  Drawing  and  Use  of 
Books  of  the  Santa  Fe  Library. 

1.  These  books  are  for  the  use  of  Employes  of  the 
A.  T.  &  S.  F.  Railway  System  and  their  families. 

2.  Any  employe,  his  wife,  and  children  above  the 
age  of  ten  years,  may  draw  books  from  this  Library, 
for  their  own  use,  on  condition  ihat  the  employe  him- 
self, assuming  the  responsibility  for  his  family,  sign 
the  form  of  agreement  provided  and  held  by  the  Li- 
brarian. 

3.  Reference  books,  cyclopaedias,  dictionaries,  mag- 
azines and  papers  of  all  kinds  may  not  be  taken  out 
of  the  Reading  Room. 

4.  All  other  books  appearing  in  the  Librarian's  cata- 
logue may  be  drawn  and  taken  home  under  the  fol- 
lowing rules: 

(t?)  No  book  may  be  kept  out  longer  than  two  weeks. 

(b]  A  book  may  be  renewed  at  the  end  of  two  weeks, 
by  bringing  the  same  to  the  Librarian  for  record. 

(c]  No  individual  will  be  permitted  to  take  more 
than  one  book. 

(rf)  Proxies  will  be  allowed  to  draw  books  only  when 
members  of  the  same  family. 

N.  B. — The  Librarian  will  be  held  responsible  for 
the  absolute  enforcement  of  these  rules.  All  em- 
ployes are  courteously  asked  to  assist  him  in  the  pro- 
jection of  the  books,  in  order  that  the  greatest  benefit 
may  be  done  to  the  greatest  number. 

Adopted  and  in  force  March  1,  1899. 

S.  E.  BUSSER, 
Supt.  of  Reading  Rooms. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALrFORNIA 


Queer  Luck 


Queer  Luck 


Poker  Stories  from  the  New  York  Sun 


By 
David  A.  Curtis 


New  York 

Brentano's 

1899 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT,  1896,  1897,  1898,  BY 

THE  SUN  PRINTING  AND  PUBLISHING  ASSOCIATION 

COPYRIGHT,  1899,  BY 

BRENTANO'S 


Contents 


PAGE 

WHY  HE  QUIT  THE  GAME  i 

FREEZE-OUT  FOR  A  LIFE  .  .  .  .19 
A  GAMBLER'S  PISTOL  PLAY  .  .  .  .35 

QUEER  RUNS  OF  LUCK 57 

STORMS'S  STRAIGHT  FLUSH    .        .        .        .75 

FOR  A  SENATE  SEAT 93 

THE  BILL  WENT  THROUGH  ....  109 
POKER  FOR  HIGH  STAKES  ....  127 
"OVERLAND  JACK"  .....  149 
His  LAST  SUNDAY  GAME  ....  169 
Foss  STOPPED  THE  GAME  ....  181 
HE  PLAYED  FOR  His  WIFE  ....  203 
THE  CLUB'S  LAST  GAME  .  .  .  221 


Why  he  Quit  the  Game 


Why  he  Quit  the  Game 

THE  EXCITEMENT  OF  A  PHENOMENAL  STRUG- 
GLE TOOK  HIM  TO  THE  VERGE  OF  DISHONOR 

Five  men  of  better  nerve  never  dealt 
cards  than  the  five  who  sat  playing  poker 
the  other  night  in  one  of  those  up-town 
club-rooms  that  are  so  quietly  kept  as  to  be 
entirely  unknown  to  the  police  and  the  gen- 
eral public.  The  game  proved  to  be  phe- 
nomenal. 

The  play  was  high.  The  party  had  played 
together  once  a  week  for  a  long  time,  and 
the  limit  had  always  been  one  dollar  at  the 
beginning  of  the  evening,  though  occasion- 
ally it  had  gone  as  high  as  ten  before  morn- 
ing. This  particular  night,  however,  the 
cards  ran  remarkably  well,  and  by  midnight 
the  limit  was  ignored  if  not  forgotten.  Two 


4  Queer  Luck 

of  the  players  had  laid  their  pocketbooks 
alongside  their  chips.  They  had  not  played 
so  before,  but  the  gambling  fever  had  come 
upon  them  with  the  excitement  of  good 
hands,  one  against  another,  until  the  friend- 
ly contest  had  become  a  struggle  for  blood. 
Fours  had  been  shown  several  times  since 
midnight,  and  beaten  once,  while  straight 
flushes  had  twice  won  important  money. 
Deck  after  deck  had  been  called  for,  and 
tossed  aside  in  turn  after  a  few  deals,  till 
the  carpet  was  strewn  thickly  with  the  dis- 
carded pasteboards,  but  there  was  no  change 
in  the  remarkable  run  of  the  cards.  Pat 
fulls  and  flushes  showed  in  deal  after  deal, 
and  the  luck  in  the  draw  was  so  extraordi- 
nary and  so  evenly  distributed  that  they  all 
grew  cautious  of  betting  on  any  ordinary 
hand,  and  a  bluff  had  not  been  tried  for  an 
hour.  Yet  no  one  had  offered  a  remark, 
though  the  play  grew  higher  and  harder. 
It  was  as  if  each  man  feared  to  break  the 


Why  he  Quit  the  Game  5 

run  by  mentioning  it.  At  length  the  Colo- 
nel spoke. 

"  The  devil  himself  is  playing  with  his 
picture  books  to-night,  I  think,"  he  said, 
with  a  short  laugh,  as  he  lost  two  stacks  of 
blues  on  a  seven  full. 

It  had  been  the  Doctor's  deal,  and  he 
looked  up  quickly.  Gazing  at  the  Colonel, 
he  said : 

"  The  hands  are  certainly  remarkable.  I 
never  saw  so  many  big  ones  at  one  sitting." 
The  words  were  simple,  but  there  was  a 
curious  tone,  half  of  question,  in  his  voice. 
There  had  not  been  such  nervous  tension  in 
the  party  before,  but  they  were  all  men  of 
experience,  and  had  seen  trouble  between 
friends  resulting  from  careless  words  on 
many  different  occasions. 

The  Colonel  detected  the  tone  and  an- 
swered quickly  and  gracefully : 

"  That's  so,  Doc.  I've  beaten  some 
strong  hands  myself  to-night." 


6  Queer  Luck 

"A  new  pack,  Sam,"  said  the  Editor, 
who  was  the  next  to  deal.  The  imperturba- 
ble darky  by  the  sideboard  produced  one 
instantly,  and  the  Editor  shuffled  it  care- 
fully. Then  he  offered  it  to  the  other  play- 
ers in  turn.  They  all  refused  to  touch  it, 
and,  shuffling  the  deck  himself  once  more, 
he  laid  it  down  for  the  cut  and  began  to 
deal.  It  was  a  little  thing,  but  so  far  out 
of  the  ordinary  as  to  mark  the  fact  that  they 
were  fencing  now  with  bare  blades,  and 
from  that  on,  there  was  a  strict  observance 
of  the  punctilio  of  the  game. 

One  by  one  the  cards  fell  in  five  symmet- 
rical little  piles,  as  perfect  as  Herrmann 
could  have  made  them,  for  the  Editor  was 
deft  with  his  fingers,  but  one  after  another 
of  the  players  passed  out  and  a  jack  pot  was 
made.  The  big  hands  had  failed  to  appear. 

It  was  the  Congressman's  deal,  and  he 
doubled  his  ante  and  took  the  cards.  The 
Colonel  sat  next  and  pushed  out  four  blue 


Why  he  Quit  the  Game  7 

chips — twenty  dollars.  The  others  all  came 
in,  the  Congressman  making  good  and  deal- 
ing without  a  word.  There  was  a  hundred 
dollars  in  the  pot,  and  there  came  that  curi- 
ous certainty  to  all  of  them  which  some- 
times comes  to  experienced  players,  that  a 
mighty  struggle  was  at  hand. 

The  Colonel  made  a  pretense  of  looking 
at  his  hand,  but  in  reality  looked  only  at 
the  first  two  cards.  They  were  both  aces. 
He  passed. 

The  Lawyer  sat  next.  He  found  a  four 
flush  and  a  pair  of  tens ;  so  he  passed. 

The  Doctor  was  next  player.  He  held  a 
pat  straight,  king  high.  He  opened  the 
pot  for  twenty  dollars. 

The  Editor  came  in  on  three  deuces,  and 
the  Congressman  with  a  pair  of  queens 
put  up  his  money.  The  others  came  up 
promptly. 

The  Colonel,  having  first  call,  looked 
over  his  hand  carefully.  The  last  card  was 


8  Queer  Luck 

an  ace  also,  and  he  called  for  one,  holding 
up  a  seven.  The  four  hearts  in  the  Law- 
yer's hand  were  the  queen,  ten,  nine,  and 
eight.  He  promptly  discarded  the  other 
ten,  and  drew  one  card.  The  Doctor,  of 
course,  stood  pat,  and  the  Editor  drew  two. 
The  Congressman  also  drew  to  the  strength 
of  his  hand. 

With  all  the  players  in,  the  Doctor  felt 
that  a  straight  was  a  doubtful  hand,  but  he 
put  up  twenty  and  waited.  The  Editor 
looked  anxiously  for  the  fourth  deuce,  but, 
finding  neither  that  nor  a  pair,  laid  down 
his  cards. 

Three  sixes  had  fallen  to  the  Congress- 
man's queens,  and  he  raised  it  twenty. 
Thereupon  they  all  looked  keenly  at  the 
Colonel.  Not  a  muscle  moved  in  his  stern, 
handsome  face,  as  he  saw  the  raise,  and 
went  fifty  better. 

It  was  ninety  dollars  for  the  Lawyer  to 
come  in.  He  simply  made  good,  and 


Why  he  Quit  the  Game  9 

looked  anxiously  to  see  if  there  would  be 
another  raise.  They  criticised  his  play 
afterward,  claiming  that  he  should  have 
raised  back,  but  he  defended  it  by  saying 
that  there  were  two  players  yet  to  hear  from. 
The  first  of  these  resigned.  A  king  straight 
was  no  hand  for  that  struggle.  The  Con- 
gressman was  still  confident  of  his  full  hand, 
however,  for  he  had  drawn  three  sixes,  and  he 
came  back  at  the  Colonel  with  fifty  more. 

The  Colonel  raised  him  a  hundred.  It 
looked  as  if  it  would  be  a  duel  between  him 
and  the  Congressman,  but  the  Lawyer  was 
still  to  hear  from.  He  raised  it  a  hundred. 
The  Congressman  made  good,  and  the  Col- 
onel raised  again. 

The  Lawyer  counted  his  chips  carefully, 
and  finding  exactly  the  right  amount,  cov- 
ered the  last  raise.  Then,  opening  his 
pocketbook,  he  drew  out  a  hundred-dollar 
bill  and  pushed  that  to  the  middle  of  the 
table. 


io  Queer  Luck 

Once  more  the  Congressman  made  good, 
and  the  Colonel  raised  it  a  hundred.  The 
Lawyer  came  back,  and  the  Congressman 
dropped  out. 

The  Colonel  raised  it  a  hundred.  The 
Lawyer  made  it  another,  and  there  was  over 
twenty-five  hundred  dollars  on  the  table. 

The  struggle  of  the  evening  had  come, 
and  the  three  who  had  dropped  out  were  not 
less  excited  than  the  two  players.  To  all 
appearance  they  were  far  more  so,  for  the 
Colonel  looked  as  calm  as  if  on  parade,  and 
the  Lawyer's  only  sign  of  agitation  was  his 
heightened  color.  None  of  them  thought 
much  of  that,  for  he  was  of  plethoric  habit 
and  flushed  easily. 

The  Colonel  raised  it  a  hundred.  The 
Lawyer  fumbled  in  his  pocketbook  for  a 
moment,  and,  drawing  out  a  fresh  roll  of 
bills,  raised  it  two  hundred.  The  Colonel 
raised  it  five  hundred.  The  Lawyer  came 
back  at  him  with  five  hundred  more.  The 


Why  he  Quit  the  Game  n 

Colonel  raised  it  a  thousand.  The  Lawyer 
flipped  up  the  ends  of  the  bills  he  was  hold- 
ing in  his  hand,  and,  counting  them  rapidly, 
found  a  little  over  two  thousand  dollars. 
Separating  the  odd  money,  he  extended  his 
hand  with  the  twenty  centuries  in  it,  and 
was  in  the  act  of  speaking,  when  he  checked 
himself  as  suddenly  as  if  he  had  been  shot. 

"I  raise — "  he  began,  and  then  was 
stricken  dumb.  The  bills  were  still  in  his 
grasp,  and,  instead  of  laying  them  down,  he 
sat  for  a  moment  as  rigid  as  a  statue,  while 
his  face  grew  white. 

The  silence  was  intense.  The  Colonel 
was  the  only  one  in  the  party  who  showed 
no  excitement,  but  the  Lawyer,  who  had 
watched  him  up  to  that  moment  with  the 
most  acute  scrutiny,  no  longer  looked  at 
him  at  all.  Instead,  he  slowly  withdrew 
his  hand,  picked  up  his  cards,  which  he  had 
laid,  face  down,  before  him,  and  looked 
them  over  again. 


12  Queer  Luck 

"What  is  that  for?"  thought  the  Edi- 
tor. "  He  is  not  looking  to  see  what  he 
holds.  He  knows  perfectly  well.  And  he 
hasn't  been  bluffing.  What  stopped  him,  I 
wonder  ?  " 

No  one  spoke,  however,  as  the  Lawyer 
laid  his  cards  down  again  and  looked  once 
more  into  his  pocketbook. 

"  Aha  !  "  thought  the  Editor.  "  It's  the 
amount  that  staggers  him.  That's  queer, 
too.  I've  seen  him  play  higher  than  this  at 
the  tables." 

It  seemed  to  be  the  amount,  however ;  for 
the  Lawyer,  finding  no  more  money  in  his 
pocketbook,  counted  out  a  thousand  dollars 
from  the  roll  in  his  hand  and,  laying  that 
on  the  pile  in  the  middle  of  the  table,  said : 

"  I  call  you." 

His  hand  shook  perceptibly,  and  for  the 
first  time  the  Colonel's  face  relaxed.  He 
smiled  grimly  as  he  laid  down  four  aces. 

The  Lawyer's  face  had  been  pale,  but  it 


Why  he  Quit  the   Game  13 

grew  almost  ghastly  as  he  showed  his  hand. 
He  had  caught  the  jack  of  hearts  in  the 
draw  and  had  won  the  pot. 

The  Doctor  watched  him  curiously,  even 
more  so  than  the  others,  though  the  entire 
party  was  surprised.  To  his  professional 
eye  it  looked  as  if  the  excitement  would 
culminate  in  a  fainting  fit.  That  for  a  mo- 
ment was  indeed  imminent;  then  the  mag- 
nificent nerve  which  had  made  the  Lawyer 
famous  stood  him  in  good  stead,  and  he  ral- 
lied by  a  supreme  effort.  Once  more  his 
hand  was  as  steady  as  clockwork  as  he 
reached  out  and  drew  the  great  pile  of  chips 
and  gold  and  bank  bills  toward  him. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  after  he  had 
done  a  strange  thing  that  he  could  com- 
mand himself  sufficiently  to  speak.  And 
while  he  was  doing  it  the  others  looked  on 
in  silence.  They  had  seen  four  aces  beaten 
by  a  straight  flush,  but  even  the  excitement 
of  that  was  in  abeyance.  Some  strange  cli- 


14  Queer  Luck 

max  was  coming,  and  none  could  even  guess 
what  it  would  be. 

First  he  counted  out  from  the  pile  twenty 
one-hundred-dollar  bills,  and,  folding  them 
together  with  the  money  he  had  held  back 
on  the  last  bet,  he  placed  the  roll  in  his 
pocketbook,  and,  closing  that  carefully,  put 
it  into  his  inside  pocket  and  drew  a  long 
breath — almost  a  gasp — as  if  of  relief. 
Next  he  counted  out  two  thousand  more  and 
pushed  it  over  toward  the  Colonel,  who 
looked  at  it  and  at  him  in  wonder.  The  re- 
mainder of  the  pot — a  goodly  sum — lay  in  a 
confused  heap  in  front  of  him,  and  before 
speaking  he  looked  at  it  steadily  for  a  space 
wherein  one  might  count  fifty.  At  length 
he  said,  raising  his  hand,  as  if  registering 
an  oath : 

"  I  am  done  with  poker.  I  have  nothing 
to  say  against  the  game.  You  all  know  how 
well  I  love  to  play.  To  my  mind  there  is 
no  other  sport  that  equals  it.  None,  I  be- 


Why  he  Quit  the  Game  15 

lieve,  so  shows  the  skill  and  the  mettle  of 
a  man  as  this  does.  Yet,  loving  the  game 
as  well  and  admiring  it  as  much  as  I  do, 
I  give  it  up  from  this  moment,  forever.  I 
have  stepped  across  the  border  line  of  dis- 
honor to-night.  The  money  I  have  just  put 
back  in  my  pocket  was  given  to  me  last 
evening  by  a  client  to  be  paid  out  this 
morning,  and  if  I  had  lost  I  could  not 
immediately  have  replaced  it.  I  had  it  in 
my  possession  simply  because  I  had  not  had 
the  opportunity  to  deposit  it,  and  in  the 
excitement  of  the  game  I  forgot  that  it  was 
not  my  own.  The  fascination  that  could 
make  me  do  a  thing  like  that  is  one  that  I 
dare  not  risk  again.  Then,  as  the  last  two 
thousand  I  bet  was  not  my  own,  I  cannot 
touch  the  money  I  won  with  it.  I  have  re- 
turned it  to  the  Colonel,  and,  as  you,  sir, 
would  never  have  betted  against  dishonest 
money,  it  is  as  if  it  had  never  been  at  stake, 
and  consequently  it  is  yours." 


1 6  Queer  Luck 

The  Colonel  bowed  and  picked  up  the 
bills. 

"As  to  the  rest  of  this,"  continued  the 
Lawyer,  pointing  to  the  pile  which  he  had 
not  yet  disturbed,  "  I  am  in  doubt.  I  cer- 
tainly won  it,  but  I  am  embarrassed  at  quit- 
ting a  friendly  game  with  such  heavy  win- 
nings. It  is  not  a  question  of  right,  but  of 
delicacy,  and  I  prefer  to  put  it  to  you,  as  to 
a  jury,  whether  I  owe  you  satisfaction  in  any 
way." 

He  paused,  and  still  no  other  man  spoke. 
It  was  as  if  each  one  was  waiting  for  the 
others.  So  the  Lawyer  spoke  again. 

"  What  am  I  to  do  ?  "  he  said.  "  I  am 
in  the  hands  of  my  friends." 

They  all  looked  at  the  Colonel.  He  was 
the  oldest  in  the  party. 

"  I  am  no  man's  censor,"  said  he,  seeing 
that  he  was  expected  to  speak.  "  Neither 
do  I  care  to  consider  the  morals  of  the  ques- 
tion, but  I  have  seen  a  man  blow  his  brains 


Why  he  Quit  the  Game  17 

out  over  a  card  table  after  he  had  done  what 
you  have  done,  and  lost,  as  you,  fortunately, 
did  not.  I  said  then  that  he  did  well,  and 
I  say  now  that  you  have  done  well.  Having 
won  with  money  that  was  not  your  own,  even 
though  you  did  it  inadvertently,  you  could 
not  touch  your  winnings.  But  as  to  that 
which  you  won  with  your  own  money — 
Are  you  very  sure  that  you  will  never  play 
again  ?  " 

"  Absolutely,"  said  the  Lawyer. 

"  Then  pocket  your  money.  We  have 
played  together,  we  five,  for  more  than  a 
year  now,  and  I  doubt  if  you  are  much 
ahead  of  the  game,  even  counting  your  win- 
nings to-night." 

He  extended  his  hand,  and  the  Lawyer 
grasped  it  nervously.  One  after  another, 
the  three  others  shook  hands  with  him  also, 
and  the  game  was  over. 


Freeze-out  for  a  Life 


Freeze-out  for  a  Life 

AN  OLD  GAME  UN&ER  NEW  CIRCUMSTANCES 

"  No,  I  don't  play  poker  any  more,"  said 
a  big  Westerner,  who  came  into  an  up-town 
club-house  the  other  night  with  some  friends 
who  had  been  showing  him  the  town.  He 
spoke  rather  seriously,  although  he  had  been 
chatting  and  laughing  in  a  loud,  breezy  way 
until  the  very  moment  when  somebody  sug- 
gested a  little  game  of  draw  as  an  appropri- 
ate wind-up  of  the  night's  diversion. 

"  Why,  how  is  that  ?  "  exclaimed  one  of 
his  friends.  "  You  used  to  play  a  stiff 
game.  You  haven't  sworn  off,  have  you  ?  " 

"N-no,"  said  the  Westerner,  still  seri- 
ous. "  I  have  not  sworn  off,  but  there  is 
no  excitement  in  the  game  for  me  now. 
The  last  game  I  played  was  too  exciting. 


22  Queer  Luck 

"  It  was  a  dozen  years  ago,  when  I  was  a 
tenderfoot,  with  the  usual  allowance  of 
freshness  and  ignorance  of  frontier  perils. 
We  used  to  call  it  brashness,  and  I  was  cer- 
tainly brash.  I  roamed  around  the  country 
for  the  better  part  of  a  year,  with  a  more  or 
less  vague  purpose  of  settling  somewhere, 
but  not  caring  much  where.  I  had  money 
enough  to  start  with,  whenever  I  should  find 
an  opening  to  suit  me,  but  I  was  not  in  a 
hurry,  and  was  enjoying  the  freedom  and 
adventurous  life  of  the  plains  as  only  a 
youngster  can  who  is  not  obliged  to  put  up 
with  the  hardships,  but  looks  on  them  as 
mere  incidents. 

"  I  was  well  down  toward  New  Mexico 
when  there  was  a  rumor  of  Indian  troubles, 
and  I  heard  that  a  company  of  United 
States  troops  were  on  the  march  toward  one 
of  the  principal  villages,  where  the  redskins 
were  particularly  sullen.  I  had  been  out 
hunting  for  a  week  with  a  couple  of  fellows 


Freeze-out  for  a  Life  23 

I  had  met  in  one  of  the  towns,  when  we  got 
the  news  from  a  stranger  who  came  into  our 
camp  late  at  night  and  asked  for  supper. 
He  admitted  when  we  questioned  him — not 
too  closely,  for  inquisitiveness  is  at  a  large 
discount  on  the  plains,  but  casually — that 
he  was  a  scout  in  the  government  employ, 
and  was  on  his  way  to  join  this  company. 

"  '  There's  likely  to  be  some  pretty  warm 
work,7  he  said  when  we  asked  a  little  more, 
'  for  if  the  red  devils  are  not  on  the  warpath 
now  they  will  be  in  a  day  or  two,  and  you 
fellows  will  do  a  smart  trick  if  you  turn 
back.7 

"  Turning  back,  however,  didn7t  seem 
very  attractive  to  me  when  there  was  so 
much  excitement  ahead.  I  promptly  re- 
marked that  I  thought  I  would  go  on  with 
the  scout  and  offer  my  services  to  the  Cap- 
tain in  command.  I  told  you  I  was  pretty 
brash  at  the  time,  and  I  had  no  knowledge 
of  military  affairs.  My  notion  was  that  the 


24  Queer  Luck 

Captain  would  be  glad  of  a  recruit,  or,  at 
least,  that  he  would  make  no  objection  to 
my  going  with  him. 

"  I  noticed  that  the  scout  looked  at  me  a 
little  curiously,  but  he  evidently  thought  it 
was  not  his  business  to  educate  tenderfeet, 
and  he  only  grunted.  My  two  companions 
were  as  fresh  as  I  was,  and  we  told  the  scout 
we  would  go  along  if  he  had  no  objection. 

"  '  It's  a  free  country,  and  I  reckon  you 
can  travel  wherever  you  like,'  he  said  with 
a  grin  that  I  understood  better  afterward. 

"  We  started  before  dawn,  and  had  some 
thirty  odd  miles  to  go  to  strike  the  trail 
where  the  company  was  expected  to  camp 
that  night.  There  were  still  some  ten  miles 
to  go  when,  as  we  were  rounding  a  small 
hill,  the  scout  suddenly  leaped  from  his 
horse  and  called  to  us  to  do  the  same. 

"  He  had  seen  Indians,  and,  to  cut  it 
short,  we  camped  that  night  in  a  place 
where  the  scout  said  that  four  men  could 


Freeze-out  for  a  Life  25 

hold  out  for  a  while,  even  against  the  hun- 
dred or  so  in  the  party  that  had  surrounded 
us.  It  was  a  certainty,  though,  that  we 
would  all  lose  our  scalps  unless  help  came, 
for  there  was  no  water  to  be  had,  and  the 
Indians  knew  it  and  made  themselves  com- 
fortable just  out  of  range  of  our  rifles.  The 
scout  didn't  say  much  for  a  long  time,  but 
we  could  see  that  he  was  thinking  as  hard  as 
any  of  us,  and  we  were  all  pretty  busy  at  it. 
There  didn't  seem  to  be  anything  to  suggest, 
or  at  least  there  was  nothing  that  I  could 
think  of  excepting  to  make  a  dash  and  try 
to  break  through.  Nobody  said  anything  in 
reply  when  I  spoke  of  that,  and  the  scout 
gave  me  a  look  of  disgust  that  made  me 
angry  enough,  but  shut  me  up  all  the  same. 
Finally  he  said : 

"  '  It's  just  this  way.  These  devils  have 
caught  us,  and  they  know  it.  They  won't 
make  a  rush,  for  they  know  we  will  shoot, 
and  an  Indian  will  never  risk  being  shot  if 


26  Queer  Luck 

he  can  get  his  man  without.  We  can't  fight 
our  way  out.  There's  too  many  of  'em. 
And  we  can't  stay  here  any  longer  than  we 
can  live  without  water.' 

"  I  asked  him  if  the  Captain  wouldn't 
make  a  search  for  him,  and  he  said  the  Cap- 
tain didn't  know  he  was  coming.  l  He's 
on  his  way  south,'  he  said, '  and  the  trail  he 
is  on  is  ten  miles  to  the  east  of  us.  There's 
only  one  thing  that  I  see,  and  that  means 
certain  death  for  somebody,  I  reckon.  It's 
certain  death  for  all  of  us,  though,  if  some- 
thing ain't  done.'  We  asked  him  what  it 
was,  and  he  said  : 

"  '  If  one  man  can  make  his  way  south- 
east far  enough,  so  that  the  noise  of  the  fir- 
ing will  reach  the  company,  the  Captain 
will  send  a  searching  party.  It  all  depends 
on  how  far  the  man  gets  before  he  is  killed. 
If  we  all  ride  out,  we  will  all  be  killed.  If 
one  man  goes,  the  others  may  stand  a 
chance.' 


Freeze-out  for  a  Life  27 

"  We  all  looked  at  one  another  in  silence 
for  a  good  while.  My  blood  ran  cold  at 
the  idea  of  riding  out  alone  into  that  pack 
of  fiends,  but  I  realized  that  our  only  chance 
was  for  somebody  to  go,  and  I  knew  life  was 
as  sweet  to  the  others  as  it  was  to  me.  In- 
stinctively we  began  first  talking  about  the 
way  the  man  who  should  go  should  ma- 
noeuvre to  best  advantage,  before  raising  the 
question  who  should  be  the  man.  It  took 
only  a  few  minutes,  though,  for  the  scout  to 
give  his  advice,  which  was  for  one  to  ride 
out,  waving  a  white  handkerchief.  He  was 
to  keep  to  the  eastward  and  ride  as  far  as  he 
dared  toward  the  Indians,  looking  sharply 
for  the  weakest  point  in  their  line  toward 
his  right.  He  should  then  make  a  dash  and 
ride  as  hard  as  possible  until  it  was  all  over, 
firing  as  often  as  he  could.  Then  we  had 
to  decide  who  should  go,  and  I  supposed, 
of  course,  that  we  would  draw  lots,  but  one 
of  the  men  spoke  up  unexpectedly  : 


28  Queer  Luck 

"  '  Whoever  goes,'  he  said,  '  doesn't  want 
to  start  for  some  hours.  The  scout  says 
just  after  daybreak  is  the  best  time.  What 
is  the  matter  with  settling  this  thing  with 
poker  ?  We  can  play  freeze-out,  and  three 
games  will  settle  it,  the  winner  dropping 
out  each  time.' 

"  The  proposition  caught  me.  You  know 
I  used  to  pride  myself  on  my  poker.  After 
a  little  hesitation  the  others  agreed.  The 
man  who  proposed  it  had  the  cards,  and  we 
counted  out  six  hundred  coffee  beans  for 
chips  and  began  playing  on  a  blanket  folded 
and  laid  on  the  ground.  You  would  think 
the  details  of  a  game  like  that  would  fix 
themselves  in  the  memory,  so  that  I  w©uld 
be  able  to  tell  you  every  hand  I  held  and 
every  bet  I  made,  wouldn't  you  ?  Well,  I 
can't.  In  fact,  I  can't  tell  anything  about 
the  first  game  excepting  that  I  was  the  first 
man  to  lose  all  his  chips.  I  had  played 
often  enough  for  what  I  thought  were  high 


Freeze-out  for  a  Life  29 

stakes,  but  the  thought  that  I  was  playing 
for  my  life  rattled  me  completely,  and  I 
really  believe  I  bet  at  random.  Whatever 
I  did  I  lost,  and  the  man  who  had  proposed 
the  game  won  out.  He  was  shot  in  a  gam- 
bling house  three  months  later — had  an 
extra  ace  in  his  sleeve,  I  believe,  or  some- 
thing like  that. 

"  The  next  freeze-out,  between  three  of 
us,  was  a  comparatively  short  one.  It  did 
not  take  more  than  twenty  minutes  for  the 
scout  to  gather  in  all  the  chips,  but  short  as 
it  was,  I  managed  to  get  myself  together  a 
little,  though  I  was  still  full  of  the  thought 
of  the  value  of  the  stakes — a  thing  which, 
I  have  noticed,  always  interferes  with  my 
play.  When  I  consider  the  value  of  a  chip 
it  always  influences  my  betting  one  way  or 
the  other,  even  though  I  try  not  to  allow  it 
to  do  so,  and  in  this  case  I  said  to  myself 
that  each  bean  represented  the  one  hun- 
dred and  fiftieth  part  of  my  life.  In  other 


30  Queer  Luck 

words,   I  was  gambling  away  months   and 
years  instead  of  money. 

"  When  the  third  game  began,  however,  I 
pulled  myself  together  with  a  most  tremen- 
dous effort,  and  really  became  as  cool  as  I 
ever  had  been  before  at  a  game  of  cards. 
The  man  I  played  against  this  time  was  a 
young  Englishman  whom  I  had  grown  to  es- 
teem highly  in  the  short  time  I  had  known 
him.  He  was  a  gentleman  clear  through, 
and  as  cheery  and  companionable  a  man  as 
I  ever  met.  His  people  at  home  never 
heard  this  story,  and  I  hope  they  never  will. 
They  know  he  was  killed  by  the  Indians  and 
that  he  was  on  a  hunting  trip,  but  they  never 
heard  of  his  last  game  of  cards,  nor  of  the 
way  he  rode  to  his  death.  We  had  each 
three  hundred  beans,  and  half  a  dozen  hands 
were  dealt  before  either  of  us  got  cards  to 
bet  on.  Then  on  my  deal  I  caught  three 
deuces  and  made  it  fifty  to  play.  He  looked 
at  his  cards  and  raised  me  fifty,  which  I 


Freeze-out  for  a  Life  31 

covered.  He  drew  one  card  and  let  it  lie 
without  looking  at  it,  while  he  watched  me. 
I  saw  him  looking,  of  course,  and  I  am  more 
glad  than  I  am  of  almost  anything  else  I 
ever  did  in  an  almost  useless  life  to  think 
that  I  made  the  worst  play  I  ever  saw  made. 
I  liked  the  man  well,  as  I  said,  and  some 
impulse  that  I  couldn't  understand  then, 
and  can't  explain  now,  told  me  to  leave  the 
thing  to  chance,  and  to  give  him  a  little  the 
better  chance.  I  had  played  with  him  be- 
fore, and  I  was  certain  that  he  had  not  come 
back  at  me  the  way  he  did  on  two  pair.  He 
was  drawing  to  a  flush,  and  somehow  I  felt 
that  he  had  filled  it.  Of  course  I  should 
have  drawn  to  the  strength  of  my  hand,  but 
I  didn't.  I  drew  one  card  only,  holding  up 
an  eight  spot  to  my  deuces,  and  I  shoved  all 
my  beans  into  the  pot  without  looking  at 
my  draw. 

"  He  gave  me  one  look,  in  which  I  read 
a  perfect  appreciation  of  what  I  had  done, 


32  Queer  Luck 

and  without  a  word  and  without  lifting  his 
fifth  card  he  pushed  his  chips  forward. 
Then  my  nerve  gave  out.  I  grew  as  white 
as  death,  I  know,  though  no  one  ever  told 
me  so,  and  I  actually  could  not  lift  my 
cards.  His  nerve  never  shook,  though,  ap- 
parently, and  he  turned  his  fifth  card 
over  as  he  laid  the  other  four  on  the 
blanket.  They  were  all  clubs.  He 
looked  at  me,  and  I  swear  I  saw  regret 
in  his  eyes.  I  tell  you,  he  was  a  man. 
Then  I  managed  to  control  myself  to  turn 
my  hand  over.  I  had  drawn  the  other 
eight." 

The  Westerner  stopped.  He  drained  his 
glass  and  then  said  : 

"  Waiter,  bring  another  bottle,  and  bring 
me  some  whisky  besides.  This  stuff  doesn't 
go  to  the  right  spot."  Then,  after  he  had 
had  his  drink,  he  said  : 

"  You  don't  wonder,  do  you,  that  I  don't 
play  poker  any  more  ?  ' ' 


Freeze-out  for  a  Life  33 

"No,"  said  his  hearers,  "  but  finish  the 
story." 

"  Oh !  there  isn't  much  more  to  it.  At 
least  that  is  the  end  of  it,  as  I  think  about 
it.  The  Englishman  shook  hands  with  us 
all,  and  rode  away.  We  watched  him  until 
he  fell,  and  he  must  have  gone  fully  three 
miles.  A  good  many  Indians  fell  before  he 
did,  for  he  was  a  clever  shot.  Later  in  the 
day  the  company  came  to  our  rescue,  and  I 
am  glad  to  say  a  good  many  more  Indians 
paid  for  his  death  with  their  own." 

3 


A  Gambler's  Pistol  Play 


A  Gambler's  Pistol  Play 

ENDING  OF  A   POKER  GAME   IN  FLOOD   TIME 
IN  ARKANSAS  CITY 

"  I  notice  that  the  stories  of  lawlessness 
and  rambunctious  violence  printed  in  the 
papers  from  time  to  time  are  told,  as  a  rule, 
of  places  far  West  or  out  of  the  usual  run  of 
travel,"  said  the  gray-haired  young-looking 
man  who  sat  in  the  card-room  of  an  up-town 
club  the  other  night  after  the  game  had 
broken  up.  "I  don't  mean  by  that,"  he 
continued,  "  to  question  the  truth  of  any  of 
these  stories.  It  only  occurs  to  me  that  the 
writers  take  unnecessary  pains  in  going  so 
far  away  for  their  material.  I  have  seen, 
right  along  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi 
River — and  we  call  that  pretty  well  East 


38  Queer  Luck 

now — some  things  as  exciting  as  any  of  the 
mining-camp  yarns.  And  everything  was 
wide  open  in  some  of  the  towns,  too.  I 
haven't  been  out  there  since  '82,  but  that's 
not  so  long  ago,  and  then  it  was  not  uncom- 
mon to  find  a  gambling  saloon  on  the  main 
floor  of  the  principal  hotel  in  a  flourishing 
town.  You  could  walk  in  as  freely  as  you 
could  into  the  barroom  and  play  faro,  keno, 
or  poker  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night. 

"  The  great  flood  of  '82  rather  accentu- 
ated the  devil-may-care  condition  of  things ; 
partly,  I  suppose,  because  there  was  not  so 
much  traveling  on  the  river  as  usual  and 
none  at  all  by  rail.  Strangers  were  scarce 
in  the  river  towns,  and  the  inhabitants  were 
reduced  to  the  necessity  of  gambling  among 
themselves.  No,  there  wasn't  what  you 
might  call  very  much  shooting,  but  every 
man  carried  a  pistol,  and  occasionally  there 
would  be  some.  There  was  enough,  at  all 
events,  to  make  the  citizens  of  Memphis  en- 


A  Gambler's  Pistol  Play          39 

force  pretty  strictly  a  city  ordinance  against 
carrying  concealed  weapons." 

"  That's  right,"  said  a  drummer  who  was 
of  the  party.  "  I  was  in  Memphis  then, 
and  I  remember  the  Mayor  of  a  Kentucky 
city  being  sent  to  jail  for  ten  days  for  carry- 
ing a  pistol.  He  had  plenty  of  money  and 
plenty  of  influence,  too,  but  neither  could 
save  him  from  jail." 

"  Well,  Memphis  was  the  only  city  I 
struck  on  the  river,"  said  the  first  speaker, 
"  where  such  a  law  was  observed.  I  got 
caught  in  Arkansas  City,  I  remember,  when 
I  was  trying  to  get  to  Little  Rock.  I  ar- 
rived there  just  after  the  train  had  gone,  so 
I  had  to  stay  over  for  forty-eight  hours. 
It's  only  about  a  hundred  miles,  but  there 
was  only  one  train,  and  that  took  all  day 
going  up  and  all  next  day  coming  down. 
It  was  an  accommodation  train,  and  I  saw 
it  stop  fifteen  minutes  for  a  darky  who  sig- 
naled from  a  distance,  with  a  basket  of 


40  Queer  Luck 

eggs  on  his  arm  which  he  wanted  to  ship  as 
freight.  The  conductor  told  me,  when  I 
asked  about  it,  that  that  was  quite  usual, 
and  a  little  while  afterward  he  stopped  the 
train  to  let  a  passenger  get  off  and  get  a 
quail  that  he  shot  from  the  car. 

"  But  the  stop  in  Arkansas  City  was  lively 
enough,  if  it  was  only  two  days.  A  darky 
was  drowned  trying  to  get  across  the  street, 
the  first  day  I  was  there,  for  the  town  was 
so  far  under  water  that  the  railroad  track  on 
top  of  the  levee  had  been  washed  away. 
Only  the  houses  on  the  highest  ground  were 
habitable,  and  there  wasn't  such  a  thing  as 
a  sidewalk  visible.  A  few  timbers  were 
strung  along  here  and  there,  and  people 
jumped  from  one  to  another  of  these  when 
they  went  from  house  to  house,  unless  they 
were  going  far  enough  to  take  a  skiff.  This 
poor  fellow  jumped  and  missed  his  footing, 
and  was  drowned  in  sight  of  a  dozen  people. 
I  asked  the  man  who  told  me  about  it 


A  Gambler's  Pistol  Play          41 

whether  any  effort  had  been  made  to  save 
him,  and  he  said  no,  that  there  was  no  boat 
handy.  And  when  I  expressed  some  horror 
he  seemed  surprised  and  said : 

"'Why,  'twas  only  a  nigger.  You 
couldn't  expect  a  white  man  to  take  chances 
to  save  him.'  Niggers  were  not  so  valuable 
then  as  they  were  before  the  war. ' ' 

"  I  don't  know  that  the  color  line  was  so 
strictly  drawn,  though,"  interrupted  the 
drummer  again.  "  I  saw  a  roustabout  fall 
into  the  river  one  night  at  New  Madrid,  and 
he  was  a  white  man,  too,  but  no  effort  was 
made  to  save  him.  The  mate  stepped  to 
the  side  of  the  boat  and  looked  over,  but  he 
did  no  more,  and  not  one  of  the  other  rous- 
ters  stopped  work  even  for  a  moment.  They 
were  unloading  freight  in  a  great  hurry,  and 
I  think  they  were  afraid  of  the  mate.  It 
was  dark,  to  be  sure,  and  the  current  was 
swift  enough  to  carry  off  the  strongest  swim- 
mer, but  still  I  was  surprised  to  see  no  effort 


42  Queer  Luck 

made  to  save  the  poor  devil.  Before  I  re- 
covered from  my  surprise  it  was  too  late  to 
do  anything,  and  it  didn't  seem  to  be  wise 
to  say  anything,  either." 

"Good  policy,  sometimes,  not  to,"  re- 
sumed the  young-looking  gray-haired  man. 
"  I  learned  to  keep  my  mouth  shut  at  a  card 
table  a  long  time  ago,  and  that  is  why  I  had 
no  part  in  a  little  disturbance  that  occurred 
the  second  day  I  was  in  Arkansas  City.  I 
don't  think  there  was  more  than  one  other 
stranger  in  town  when  I  was.  He  had  come 
there  the  day  before  me,  on  the  train,  and 
was  waiting  for  a  boat  up  the  river.  I 
struck  up  an  acquaintance  with  him,  and  he 
told  me  he  was  on  his  way  home,  after  a 
business  trip.  I  congratulated  him  and  we 
took  a  drink  on  it,  next  door  to  the  hotel. 

"  We  were  both  tired  waiting,  and  there 
was  nothing  better  to  do  in  the  place,  so  we 
both  sauntered  to  the  room  just  back  of  the 
bar.  The  door  was  wide  open,  and  we  saw 


A  Gambler's  Pistol  Play          43 

card-playing  inside.  Three  men  were  play- 
ing poker,  and  we  stood  for  a  few  moments 
looking  on.  One  of  the  three  was  a  comi- 
cal-looking old  fellow,  evidently  a  super- 
annuated gambler.  He  must  have  been 
seventy  years  old,  and  his  hands  were  very 
shaky,  but  I  could  not  make  up  my  mind 
whether  he  was  palsied  or  had  been  drink- 
ing, or  whether  he  was  assuming  decrepitude 
in  order  to  watch  the  cards  more  carefully 
as  he  dealt  them.  The  latter  seemed  likely 
enough,  and  I  suspected  marked  cards,  so  I 
pleaded  ignorance  of  the  game  when  one  of 
the  other  players — the  proprietor  of  the 
place,  as  I  learned  later — looked  up  with  a 
pleasant  smile  and  suggested  that  perhaps 
my  friend  and  I  would  like  to  join  in. 

"  My  '  friend,'  as  he  called  him — I  didn't 
even  know  his  name — was  willing  enough, 
and  he  sat  in.  I  stood  by,  smoking  and 
looking  on  for  a  few  minutes,  though  I  pre- 
tended not  to  be  watching  the  game  very 


44  Queer  Luck 

closely.  You  can't  be  too  careful  about  ob- 
serving the  etiquette  of  the  place  you're  in, 
as  I  have  always  noticed,  no  matter  what 
place  it  is,  and  the  people  around  a  card 
table  are  always  liable  to  resent  an  out- 
sider's interest  if  it  even  borders  on  inquisi- 
tiveness.  Where  the  resentment  is  liable 
to  be  expressed  with  a  knife  or  a  pistol,  a 
wise  man  avoids  showing  his  interest  if  he 
has  any. 

"In  this  case  I  hadn't  a  great  deal.  I 
saw  the  game  was  crooked,  but  it  made  no 
difference  to  me  whether  the  other  stranger 
knew  it  or  not.  If  he  did  it  was  dog  eat 
dog,  and  if  he  didn't  he  deserved  to  lose 
for  playing  with  strangers  in  such  a  place. 
However,  I  noticed  pretty  soon  that  the  old 
fellow,  whom  the  others  called  Major,  and 
the  proprietor,  whom  they  all  addressed  as 
Pete,  were  looking  uneasily  at  me  and  at 
each  other  from  time  to  time,  and  that  the 
third  player,  whose  back  was  turned  toward 


A  Gambler's   Pistol   Play          45 

me,  was  making  an  ostentatious  show  of  hid- 
ing his  cards  from  me,  as  if  he  suspected  or 
feared  me  and  wanted  me  to  know  it.  Ac- 
cordingly I  thought  the  wisest  thing  for  me 
was  to  stroll  back  to  the  front  room  and 
treat  the  bartender. 

While  we  were  drinking,  another  man 
came  in.  He  wore  no  coat,  vest,  or  hat. 
He  was,  I  think,  the  handsomest  man  I  ever 
saw,  though  he  was  slightly  flushed  with 
liquor;  not  drunk,  by  any  means,  but  he 
had  evidently  been  drinking.  He  was  a 
little  above  the  medium  height,  with  a 
symmetrical  form,  magnificent  chest  and 
shoulders,  and  the  easy  motion  and  graceful 
carriage  of  a  skilled  athlete.  He  passed 
directly  to  the  card-room,  nodding  to  the 
barkeeper  and  merely  glancing  at  me,  and 
I  heard  him  say  : 

"  '  Do  you  want  another  in  the  game  ? ' 
"  The  response  was  pleasant,  and  he  took 
a  seat.     Up  to  this  time  I  had  not  been 


46  Queer  Luck 

greatly  interested,  as  I  said,  and  I  con- 
tinued talking  to  the  man  behind  the  bar, 
simply  because  I  had  nothing  else  to  do. 
The  newcomer,  however,  was  talkative,  and, 
as  I  noticed  in  a  few  moments,  inclined  to 
be  surly.  He  seemed  to  be  trying  to  pick  a 
quarrel  with  the  stranger,  and  I  lingered, 
with  some  natural  curiosity,  to  see  if  he 
would  succeed.  Presently  the  explosion 
came.  He  lost  a  jack-pot  which  the  stran- 
ger won  on  three  tens. 

" '  You  opened  that  pot  on  a  pair  of 
tens,'  he  exclaimed  with  an  oath,  '  and 
when  we  catch  any  cross-roads  gambler 
playing  that  kind  of  a  game  in  this  town  we 
commonly  hang  'em,  do  you  understand  ? ' 

"  It  was  said  noisily  and  furiously,  and  I 
looked  in  expecting  to  see  a  fight,  but  the 
stranger  spoke  as  coolly  as  though  the  other 
had  been  calling  for  his  draw. 

"  '  I  did  nothing  of  the  sort,  sir.  I  came 
in  on  a  pair  of  tens,  as  I  had  a  perfect  right 


A  Gambler's   Pistol   Play          47 

to  do,  after  the  Major  opened  it,  and  I 
caught  the  third  ten  in  the  draw.' 

"  '  I  say  you  opened  it,'  shouted  the  new- 
comer with  another  oath. 

"  The  stranger  looked  at  him  with  the 
most  perfect  composure  and  said  : 

"'I  appeal  to  the  table.  Gentlemen, 
did  I  open  it  ? ' 

"  '  No,  sir,'  said  the  old  Major,  promptly 
enough.  '  I  opened  it  myself,  and  dropped 
out  after  I  was  raised  twice.  Jack,  shut  up  ! 
The  gentleman  is  playing  all  right.' 

"  But  Jack  wouldn't  shut  up.  On  the 
contrary,  he  became  more  furious. 

"  '  This  is  a  hell  of  a  game  ! '  he  shouted, 
and  leaped  to  his  feet  like  a  panther,  totally 
oblivious  of  the  few  chips  in  front  of  him. 
He  had  lost  nearly  all  he  had  bought  on 
coming  in. 

"  The  stranger  never  moved,  though  I  ex- 
pected to  see  weapons  drawn.  He  looked 
Jack  full  in  the  face  with  a  sort  of  bewilder- 


48  Queer  Luck 

ment  on  his  own  face,  and  said  nothing. 
Jack  stood  for  a  moment,  and  while  I  was 
wondering  whether  the  stranger  was  showing 
nerve,  or  was  really  bewildered,  he  turned 
suddenly  and  dashed  out  of  the  room. 

"  The  stranger  looked  around  at  the  other 
players,  and  there  was  a  distinct  drawl  in 
his  words  as  he  said : 

"  '  What  is  the  matter  with  that  man  ?  ' 

"  *  Oh,  nothing,'  said  Pete,  carelessly. 
'  You  mustn't  mind  him.  He  killed  a  man 
yesterday,  and  he's  been  drinking  a  good 
deal  to-day.  He's  a  little  excited,  but  it 
doesn't  mean  anything.' 

"  '  But  why  did  he  rush  out  so  curiously  ?  ' 
persisted  the  stranger. 

"  '  Well,  I  suppose  he  went  out  to  get 
heeled,'  said  Pete;  'but  you  needn't  be 
disturbed.  The  boys  won't  let  him  come 
back.' 

"  '  Well,  perhaps  they  won't,'  said  the 
stranger,  still  drawling  his  words,  '  but  it's 


A  Gambler's   Pistol   Play          49 

just  as  well  to  be  on  the  safe  side.  If  you 
will  excuse  me  for  a  few  minutes  I'll  step 
over  to  the  hotel  and  get  my  gun.  I  left  it 
in  my  satchel.' 

"  '  Why,  certainly,'  said  the  others,  and 
he  arose,  leaving  his  chips  on  the  table,  and 
went  out  of  the  place.  He  said  nothing 
when  he  passed  me,  and  I  thought  it  best 
to  say  nothing,  too,  but  you  couldn't  have 
dragged  me  away  just  then.  I  suppose 
every  man  likes  to  see  a  fight,  and  I  thought 
there  was  a  good  chance  for  one.  I  don't 
drink  fast  as  a  rule,  but  it  seemed  to  be  a 
good  time  to  treat  again,  and  when  the 
glasses  were  emptied  I  said : 

"  '  Did  he  really  kill  a  man  yesterday  ?  ' 

"  '  Yes,'  said  the  bartender  indifferently. 
e  There  was  a  fellow  tried  to  get  funny  with 
him  in  his  saloon  next  door,  and  when  Jack 
ordered  him  out  and  he  wouldn't  go  Jack 
shot  him.' 

"  '  Wasn't  he  arrested  ? '  I  asked. 
4 


50  Queer  Luck 

"  '  No,  he  wasn't  exactly  arrested,  but  he 
appeared  before  the  Coroner  and  told  how 
it  was,  and  the  Coroner  said  he'd  have  to 
lay  the  matter  before  the  Grand  Jury.' 

"  '  He  wasn't  locked  up,  then  ? '  I  per- 
sisted. 

"  '  Oh,  no.  You  see,  Jack's  very  popular 
around  here,  and  he's  got  quite  some  prop- 
erty, too.  I  don't  think  the  boys  would 
have  liked  it  much  if  he'd  been  locked  up.' 

"  While  I  was  meditating  on  this  the 
stranger  came  back,  and,  resuming  his  seat 
at  the  table,  laid  his  pistol  alongside  his 
chips,  which  the  others  had  not  disturbed. 
They  dealt  him  a  hand,  and  the  game, 
which  had  not  been  interrupted  by  his  ab- 
sence, went  on  as  before.  No  one  made 
any  remark  about  the  pistol  or  about  the 
man  who  had  gone  out  to  get  heeled,  but 
the  old  Major  pulled  out  a  double-barreled 
derringer  and  laid  it  on  the  table,  and  I 
looked  to  see  the  others  do  the  same  thing, 


A  Gambler's  Pistol  Play          51 

but  they  did  not.  I  had  no  doubt,  how- 
ever, that  they  were  armed,  and  they  were 
all  looking  for  trouble. 

"  They  had  not  long  to  wait.  There  was 
a  sound  of  voices  outside,  presently,  and 
looking  out  I  saw  Jack,  still  furious  with 
anger,  apparently,  breaking  away  from  two 
or  three  men  who  were  evidently  trying  to 
detain  him,  but  who  had  a  wholesome  re- 
spect for  the  revolver  he  had  in  his  hand. 
I  looked  around.  The  Major  was  dealing, 
and  the  other  players  were  watching  him, 
apparently,  but  I  was  satisfied  that  they  had 
heard  the  talk  outside,  and  were  all  alert. 
The  bartender  was  safe  to  drop  behind  the 
bar  when  the  shooting  began,  and  I  looked 
for  some  place  where  I  should  be  able  to 
see  and  yet  not  be  in  range.  There  was  a 
window  in  the  partition  between  the  rooms, 
about  twelve  feet  to  one  side  of  the  door, 
and  I  stepped  over  there  as  Jack  came  in 
toward  the  door. 


52  Queer  Luck 

"  Through  this  window  I  saw  the  most 
magnificent  display  of  cool  nerve  that  ever 
came  under  my  notice.  The  stranger  never 
changed  color,  nor  moved  in  his  chair,  but 
I  could  see  his  eyelids  contract  and  his  lips 
tighten  as  he  quickly  and  quietly  put  his 
hand  on  his  revolver  and  looked  toward  the 
door,  at  which  Jack  was  just  appearing,  pis- 
tol in  hand. 

"  On  the  instant  Pete  drew  a  bowie  knife, 
with  a  motion  so  quick  that  I  could  not  tell 
where  the  knife  came  from,  and  drove  it 
square  through  the  stranger's  hand  into  the 
table  underneath,  nailing  it  fast  to  the 
wood. 

"  If  the  stranger  had  even  flinched,  he 
would  have  been  dead  in  another  moment, 
for  Jack's  pistol  was  leveled  at  him,  but 
with  a  motion  as  quick  as  Pete's  he  reached 
over  with  his  left  hand,  seized  his  revolver, 
and  shot  Jack  through  the  pistol  arm,  shat- 
tering his  elbow,  just  as  he  was  pulling  his 


A  Gambler's  Pistol  Play          53 

trigger.  And  the  next  instant  he  had  shot 
Pete  through  the  heart,  and  turning  to  the 
Major,  he  shouted,  '  Drop  that  gun  ! ' 

"The  old  fellow  dropped  it,  and  threw 
up  his  hands.  The  other  man  had  gone  un- 
der the  table  like  a  flash,  being  only  anx- 
ious to  get  out  of  the  trouble.  And  Jack, 
with  a  howl  of  pain  and  terror,  had  turned 
and  run.  The  fight  was  over  before  it  was 
fairly  begun,  and  the  stranger  had  not 
moved  from  his  chair. 

"  With  his  left  hand  he  pulled  out  the 
knife  and  wrapped  up  his  right  in  a  hand- 
kerchief, and,  stepping  to  the  bar,  said  to 
the  bartender : 

"  '  You  want  to  have  a  doctor  here  damned 
quick  to  dress  my  hand.  And  while  you  are 
about  it,  you'd  better  notify  the  Coroner,  if 
there's  one  around.  I  propose  to  have 
this  inquest  held  before  the  witnesses  get 
away. 

"The  Coroner  was  around;  in  fact,  he 


54  Queer  Luck 

was  playing  cards  only  four  or  five  doors 
away,  and  in  half  an  hour  he  was  holding 
his  inquest.  The  stranger  had  shown  his 
good  sense  in  demanding  immediate  action, 
for  though  he  was  a  stranger,  the  facts  were 
too  plain  for  a  dispute,  and  even  one  or  two 
of  Pete's  friends  on  the  jury  were  forced  to 
admit  that  the  stranger  had  killed  his  man 
in  self-defense. 

"  He  was  accordingly  informed  by  the 
Coroner  that  he  could  go  on  his  own  recog- 
nizance to  appear  before  the  Grand  Jury, 
and  after  treating  the  crowd  at  the  dead 
man's  bar,  and  paying  for  the  treat  with  the 
chips  he  had  on  the  card  table,  he  went 
over  to  the  levee  and  boarded  a  boat  that 
had  stopped  on  her  way  up  river. 

"  He  had  given  his  name  to  the  Coroner 
as  Dick  Davis  of  Tuscumbia,  Ala.,  and  I 
afterward  heard  that  he  was  really  a  cross- 
roads gambler,  as  traveling  card  sharps  used 
to  be  called,  and  was  a  famous  pistol  shot. 


A  Gambler's  Pistol  Play          55 

Why  he  did  not  kill  Jack  as  well  as  Pete  I 
never  really  understood,  for  if  the  stories  of 
his  marksmanship  were  one-half  true,  he 
could  have  done  it  easily  enough.  I  never 
knew  what  the  Grand  Jury  did  about  it." 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck 

VARIOUS  YARNS,  INCLUDING  ONE  OF  THE 
MAN  AND   THE  OPAL 

"  I  have  often  heard  people  say  that  they 
do  not  believe  in  luck,"  said  the  gray- 
haired  young-looking  man,  "  and  they  say 
it  in  the  sense  of  disbelieving  that  there  is 
any  such  thing  as  luck.  To  my  notion  that 
is  very  much  the  same  as  if  they  should  say 
that  they  do  not  believe  in  the  weather.  I 
believe  it  was  John  Oakhurst  who  said  that 
the  only  thing  that  is  certain  about  luck  is 
that  it  is  going  to  change ;  but  although  the 
saying  sounds  philosophical,  I  am  inclined 
to  think  it  is  inaccurate.  I  have  known  a 
great  many  men  in  the  course  of  my  life 
whose  luck  did  not  change.  To  illustrate 
this  it  may  be  enough  to  recall  the  stories 


60  Queer  Luck 

that  are  told  once  in  a  great  while  about 
sailors  who  are  swept  overboard  by  the 
waves  in  a  storm  at  sea  and  who  are  swept 
back  on  board  the  same  vessel  by  the  return 
current.  The  man  who  escapes  drowning 
in  such  a  way  experiences  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  strokes  of  luck  that  can  pos- 
sibly occur  to  a  human  being.  And  it  is  al- 
most inconceivable  that  such  a  thing  would 
happen  to  any  one  man  twice. 

"  Yet  I  know  a  man  to  whom  it  has  hap- 
pened three  times.  Captain  Lowden  White, 
of  East  Rockaway,  Long  Island,  is  a  vet- 
eran seaman.  He  cannot  swim  a  stroke, 
and  when  he  is  asked  why  he  never  learned, 
he  cannot,  or  at  least  he  does  not,  give  any 
clear  answer,  but  turns  the  question  with  a 
careless  'I  don't  know'  and  a  pleasant 
laugh.  I  think  he  is  superstitious  about  it, 
as  many  sailors  are,  and  certainly  if  any- 
body's experience  justifies  superstition  his 
would  seem  to,  for,  as  I  said,  he  has  been 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck  61 

washed  overboard  three  times  in  the  course 
of  the  last  forty  years,  and  each  time  washed 
back  immediately  on  board  the  vessel  he 
had  just  left.  And  that  does  not  include 
the  times  he  has  fallen  or  been  knocked 
overboard  and  saved  in  some  other  way.  I, 
myself,  once  caught  him  by  the  collar  after 
he  had  fallen  into  the  water  by  reason  of 
the  snapping  of  the  bowsprit  foot-rope  of 
the  sloop  "  Martha,"  near  Wreck  Lead.  He 
had  rubber  boots  on,  and  the  current  was 
running  like  a  mill-race.  If  I  had  been 
two  seconds  slower  he  would  never  have 
come  up  alive.  If  it  were  a  legitimate  sub- 
ject for  a  bet  I  would  wager  any  reasonable 
sum  that  a  man  with  such  an  experience 
would  never  be  drowned. 

"  That  is  what  I  call  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  runs  of  luck  that  I  ever  heard  of. 
And  it  is  something  of  a  coincidence,  per- 
haps, that  Captain  White  himself  is  a  firm 
believer  in  his  own  luck  in  other  matters, 


62  Queer  Luck 

though  he  does  not  talk  much  about  his 
escapes  from  drowning.  He  was  in  his 
younger  days  fairly  prosperous,  and  had 
gathered  together  a  modest  competence 
when  he  was  between  forty  and  fifty  years 
old.  Then  something  happened.  I  hinted 
that  he  was  superstitious.  What  happened 
was  that  he  killed  a  cat.  That  does  not 
seem  to  the  average  man  to  be  a  very  im- 
portant occurrence,  but  the  Captain  firmly 
believes  that  it  changed  the  whole  course  of 
his  life. 

"'I  had  always  been  lucky  before,'  he 
says,  *  and  I  have  not  had  a  day's  luck 
since.'  And  the  fact  is,  that  whereas  he 
was  formerly  well-to-do,  he  is  not  so  now, 
poor  man. 

"  I  suppose  everybody  who  plays  poker 
believes  in  luck.  Certainly  I  do,  and  I 
have  seen  certain  things  at  the  card  table 
that  in  their  way  were  as  remarkable  as  the 
runs  of  a  single  number  at  roulette,  that 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck  63 

make  up  the  pretty  little  romances  that  go 
out  from  Monte  Carlo  at  times,  and  that 
used  to  be  dated  Baden  Baden.  I  sat  watch- 
ing a  game  one  night  at  a  friend's  house  in 
St.  Nicholas  Avenue,  in  which  only  inti- 
mate friends  were  playing,  and  two  of  them 
were  ladies.  I  did  not  join,  as  there  were 
six  at  the  table,  and  I  don't  like  a  game 
with  seven  in.  There  was  absolutely  noth- 
ing in  the  game  to  distinguish  it  from  any 
other  of  the  hundreds  of  games  that  go  on 
in  the  family  circles  of  up-to-date  New 
Yorkers  every  night.  The  limit  was  five 
cents.  There  wasn't  a  player  in  the  game 
who  knew  enough  of  card  manipulation  to 
deal  a  crooked  hand,  and  there  wasn't  one 
there  who  would  have  done  it  under  temp- 
tation. And,  moreover,  there  wasn't  any- 
thing like  temptation. 

"  Yet  one  woman  in  that  game  held  a  suc- 
cession of  hands  that  would  have  made  a 
fortune  for  an  ordinarily  good  player  if  he 


64  Queer  Luck 

were  lucky  enough  to  hold  them  in  a  stiff 
game.  She  had  been  playing  with  indiffer- 
ent success  for  perhaps  half  an  hour,  and  I 
was  amusing  myself  by  noticing  her  essen- 
tially feminine  style  of  play,  when  she  sud- 
denly began  holding  flushes.  Five  times  in 
succession  she  held  a  flush  before  any  spe- 
cial remark  was  made.  Of  course,  there 
was  the  usual  chatter  and  chaffing,  but  when 
she  showed  down  the  fifth  flush  in  five  deals, 
there  was  a  general  outburst  of  comment, 
and  a  confession  by  her  that  it  did  seem 
uncanny. 

"  '  It  will  give  me  the  shivery  creeps  if  I 
get  any  more,'  was  the  way  she  expressed  it, 
and  I  could  see  that  she  really  was  nervous. 
That,  naturally,  amused  me,  for  it  was  not 
so  very  extraordinary,  though  it  was  cer- 
tainly unusual. 

"  The  next  hand  she  held  nothing.  Then 
she  got  a  four  flush  and  filled.  Then  she 
got  a  pat  flush;  then,  drawing  to  the  ace 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck  65 

and  king  of  spades,  she  got  three  more 
spades.  The  next  hand  was  nothing,  and 
the  next  was  a  pat  flush.  By  this  time  I 
was  excited  myself,  as  was  everybody  in  the 
game,  and  I  made  a  memorandum  of  the 
last  eleven  hands,  and  began  jotting  down 
each  hand  as  she  held  it. 

"  In  thirty-six  consecutive  hands  she  held 
twenty-seven  flushes.  None  of  the  other 
nine  hands  contained  even  a  pair.  Five  of 
the  twenty-seven  were  pat  hands ;  nine  times 
she  drew  one  card,  eight  times  she  drew 
two,  three  times  she  drew  three,  and  twice 
she  drew  four.  There  seemed  to  be  no  dis- 
tinction of  suits.  The  flush  was  of  one  suit 
as  often  as  another.  It  was  absolutely  im- 
possible that  there  could  have  been  trickery, 
for  there  were  six  dealing  in  turn.  The 
lady  herself  was  exceedingly  nervous  about 
it,  and  although  she  became  so  excited  as 
to  continue  drawing  for  flushes,  she  ceased 
to  try  to  play  them  scientifically.  Indeed, 
5 


66  Queer  Luck 

the  other  players  ceased  after  a  time  to  bet 
against  her,  and  the  cards  were  at  length 
dealt  more  from  curiosity  than  from  any  in- 
terest in  the  game  as  a  game.  At  length, 
however,  the  lucky  lady  grew  so  nearly  hys- 
terical that  her  husband  made  some  excuse 
to  break  up  the  game.  I  was  sorry  it  had 
to  be  done,  too,  for  I  wanted  to  see  how 
long  such  a  run  would  continue,  but  the 
lady  has  told  me  since  that  she  never,  be- 
fore or  since,  had  any  similar  experience, 
though  she  plays  frequently. 

"  I  never  saw  anything  exactly  similar  to 
that,  but  I  had  a  run  of  luck  once  myself 
that  seemed  to  me  almost  as  curious.  I 
went  to  visit  a  friend  and  there  was  invited 
to  sit  down  at  a  poker  game  with  some  men 
I  had  never  met  before.  The  fact  of  not 
knowing  the  other  players  did  not  worry 
me,  for  I  assumed  that  they  were  all  friends 
of  Harry's,  but  it  was  not  long  before  the 
fact  that  they  did  not  know  me  began  to 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck  67 

worry  me  most  confoundedly,  for  I  never 
had  such  cards  in  my  life  before,  and  I 
don't  dare  even  to  hope  that  I  will  ever 
hold  them  again.  If  the  circumstances  had 
been  different  and  I  could  have  felt  free  to 
play  to  win,  I  could  have  won  big  money, 
for  they  were  playing  an  open  game,  and 
the  limit  was  two  dollars.  At  first  I  played 
my  hands  for  what  they  were  worth,  and  I 
won  more  than  half  the  pots  I  played  for — 
a  big  percentage  when  six  are  playing.  But 
after  a  little  I  began  to  worry.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  they  must  mistrust  me,  and  I 
hesitated  about  betting  as  I  ordinarily 
would.  Still  I  kept  winning  and  my  pile 
of  chips  grew  till  I  was  positively  ashamed 
of  myself. 

"  Then  I  started  to  try*  to  lose  money. 
Fancy  a  man  doing  that  at  poker  !  I  threw 
down  a  number  of  hands  that  were  well 
worth  betting  on,  and  bet  rather  heavily  on 
some  that  I  was  convinced  were  losers. 


68  Queer  Luck 

Even  at  that  I  got  fooled  once  or  twice  and 
took  in  pots  that  were  not  contested,  when 
the  other  players  would  have  won  them  if 
they  had  not  grown  cautious  of  my  luck. 
Still,  I  was  reducing  my  pile  slowly,  in 
spite  of  the  cards  I  was  getting,  and  would 
have  reduced  it  still  further  if  the  ladies 
had  not  grown  tired  of  their  own  society 
and  come  out  to  look  at  the  game.  One  or 
two  casual  remarks  by  their  husbands  about 
my  luck  excited  their  curiosity,  and  two  or 
three  began  looking  at  my  cards. 

"  I  don't  know  what  they  thought  of  my 
playing,  for  I  still  refused  to  press  my  luck 
as  even  the  most  cowardly  player  would 
have  done,  but  I  know  they  were  fairly  as- 
tonished at  the  way  the  cards  came  to  me. 
Over  and  over  again  I  filled  full  hands, 
drawing  to  a  pair  j  twice  I  held  fours,  and 
the  flushes  were  as  common  as  two  pairs 
ever  were  when  I  played  before.  I  played 
at  random.  I  made  wild  draws  and  foolish 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck  69 

bets,  and  threw  down  winning  hands,  but 
the  chips  kept  coming  my  way  till  the  situ- 
ation became  positively  painful.  That  luck 
held  till  the  game  broke  up,  and,  though  I 
had  honestly  tried  to  keep  from  winning,  I 
had  seventy-five  dollars  cash  to  the  good, 
over  and  above  the  stack  I  bought  on  en- 
tering the  game.  To  make  matters  worse, 
one  of  the  players  had  given  me  some  un- 
mistakably black  looks,  and  in  my  embar- 
rassment I  felt  certain  that  he  took  me  for 
a  card  sharp,  and  I  thought  that  the  others 
would  be  likely  to  share  his  opinion. 

"  When  we  were  all  saying  good-night, 
however,  one  of  the  players  drew  me  one 
side  and  whispered : 

"  *  We  were  very  glad  to  see  you  win  that 

money.'     I  was  puzzled  for  fair,  but  I  said : 

."'Well,  I'm  glad  you're  glad,  but  why 

should  you  be  ?     I  didn't  exactly  like  it 

myself.' 

"  '  No,'  he  replied.     '  I  saw  you  didn't. 


70  Queer  Luck 

But  didn't  you  notice  that  the  man  that 
lost  the  most  lost  his  temper  also  ? ' 

"  '  Yes/  I  said,  '  I  did  notice  that.' 

"  '  Well,'  he  chuckled,  '  he  is  the  fellow 
we  have  been  trying  all  winter  to  catch.' 

"  That  was  a  relief,  but  I  never  got  over 
my  regret  that  the  easiest  winnings  I  ever 
made  at  poker  should  have  come  when  I 
was  trying  my  best  to  lose." 

"  I  quite  believe,  as  you  do,"  said  one  of 
his  listeners,  "  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
luck,  but  do  you  think  that  it  is  affected  by 
anything  that  we  can  possess  ?  " 

"  Meaning  a  rabbit's  foot  or  a  child's 
caul,  I  suppose,"  said  the  gray-haired 
young-looking  man  with  a  smile.  "  Well, 
I  wouldn't  like  to  declare  myself  on  that 
point,  but  I  can  tell  you  one  more  story  that 
is  true  within  my  own  knowledge.  About 
five  years  ago  I  met  a  man  on  Broadway, 
whom  I  had  formerly  known  as  a  speculator 
and  a  roving  character  in  the  West.  He 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck  71 

was  a  good  fellow,  with  a  reputation  for 
being  square  that  I  had  never  heard  ques- 
tioned, and  he  had,  when  I  knew  him  well, 
been  unusually  successful,  so  that  he  was 
very  well  off  for  a  young  man.  I  was  there- 
fore surprised  to  see  that  he  looked  very 
seedy.  Moreover,  he  had  a  discouraged 
look  which  I  had  never  seen  on  his  face 
before. 

"  I  questioned  him,  and  he  frankly  de- 
clared that  he  was  '  dead  broke '  and  in 
trouble.  He  had  tried  New  York  in  the 
hope  of  mending  matters,  but  had  decided 
that  his  best  chance  was  to  go  West  again. 
I  offered  to  help  him,  but  he  would  not  bor- 
row more  than  a  trifle,  which  he  needed 
toward  his  fare  to  Chicago.  While  he 
talked  I  noticed  that  he  wore  a  small  but 
very  brilliant  opal  in  his  scarf-pin,  and  half- 
laughingly  I  asked  him  if  he  ever  expected 
to  have  any  luck  while  he  wore  that.  It 
was  not  an  expensive  stone,  but  it  was  a 


72  Queer  Luck 

very  pretty  one.  He  looked  at  me,  half 
surprised,  for  a  moment,  and  then  he  took 
the  pin  out  and  looked  at  it  thoughtfully  for 
several  moments  before  speaking.  At  length 
he  said : 

'"I  don't  know  that  I  ever  had  any  su- 
perstition. In  fact,  I  don't  know  that  I 
have  now,  but  it  is  certainly  curious.  I 
bought  that  stone  about  two  years  ago,  and 
everything  I  have  done  in  a  business  way 
since  then  has  resulted  in  a  loss.  I  have 
lost  some  thousands  more  than  I  had,  and 
have  still  to  pay  the  debts.  I  think  I'll 
throw  it  away.  The  setting  is  worth  the 
price  of  a  dinner,  I  guess,  so  I'll  keep  that.' 
And  he  pried  the  jewel  out  with  his  pen- 
knife and  tossed  it  into  the  gutter. 

"  I  met  him  again  last  week,  and  he  re- 
turned the  loan,  taking  the  bills  off  a  roll 
that  it  would  do  you  good  to  look  at.  He 
told  me  that  his  luck  had  changed  the  day 
he  threw  the  stone  away,  for  he  received  a 


Queer  Runs  of  Luck  73 

letter  that  afternoon  which  put  him  on  the 
track  of  a  contract  by  which  he  made  twenty 
thousand  within  a  year,  and  that  since  then 
everything  had  prospered  as  it  always  had 
before  he  bought  the  opal. 

"  I  don't  feel  called  on  to  say  what  I 
think  about  it,  but  those  are  the  facts,  and, 
to  say  the  least,  they  are  curious." 


Storms' s  Straight  Flush 


Storms's  Straight  Flush 

IT  CAME  NEAR  COSTING  HIS  LIFE  AND 
ANOTHER'S 

"  I  am  not  one  who  is  disposed  to  quarrel 
with  the  inevitable,"  said  the  gray-haired 
young-looking  man  as  he  lighted  his  pipe  in 
the  club  smoking-room.  There  had  been 
considerable  discussion  in  the  club  as  to  the 
propriety  of  allowing  pipes,  but  he  had 
taken  no  part  in  it.  He  had  simply  kept 
on  smoking  his  pipe  till  the  others  had  set- 
tled the  question,  and  when  it  was  settled 
he  continued  to  have  nothing  whatever  to 
say. 

."I  don't  quarrel  with  the  inevitable," 
he  remarked,  "  and  I  realize  that  changes  of 
all  sorts  are  among  the  things  that  are  in- 
evitable. Modern  progress  cannot  be  stayed, 


78  Queer  Luck 

and  modern  improvements  cannot  be  ig- 
nored. We  have  new  business  methods, 
new  political  doctrines,  new  translations  of 
the  Bible,  and  veven  the  new  woman,  and 
there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  possibility  of 
ignoring  them,  or  even  getting  away  from 
them.  I  therefore  make  no  objection  to 
change  of  any  sort,  further  than  to  cling  to 
the  old  order  of  things  myself,  as  far  as  I 
can.  Aside  from  that  I  am  strongly  in  fa- 
vor of  new-fangled  ways — for  those  that  like 
them.  Indeed,  I  always  think  of  what  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  said :  '  For  people  that  like 
that  sort  of '  " 

"Oh!  forget  it,"  said  the  man  with  his 
heels  on  the  fender.  "  Excuse  me,"  he 
added,  as  the  other  looked  at  him  in  mild 
surprise,  "  but  that  is  such  an  awful  chest- 
nut. What  has  provoked  you  to  philoso- 
phizing ?  " 

"  Was  I  philosophizing  ?  Well,  perhaps 
I  was.  One  of  the  youngsters  asked  me  to 


Storms' s  Straight  Flush  79 

join  in  a  game  of  poker  a  little  while  ago, 
and  I  was  going  to  do  it,  for  I  like  poker 
when  the  stakes  are  not  too  heavy,  but  he 
told  me  they  were  playing  with  a  joker. 

"  Now,  they  may  get  up  a  game  of  poker 
one  of  these  days  with  high,  low,  big  and 
little  casino,  and  the  right  and  left  bowers 
in  it,  and  it  may  prove  to  be  a  game  that 
will  be  much  liked  by  those  who  play  it. 
Certainly,  I  will  have  nothing  against  it. 
But  when  I  sit  in  at  the  game  I  want  to 
play  it  as  I  learned  it.  So  I  declined  the 
invitation." 

"Do  you  play  it  as  you  learned  it?" 
asked  the  other.  "  When  I  learned,  four 
aces  couldn't  be  beaten." 

"  I  must  admit  that  point  to  be  well 
taken,"  said  the  gray-haired  young-looking 
man,  "  f or  I  can  remember,  myself,  when  a 
straight  flush  was  an  unknown  hand.  In 
fact,  the  first  one  I  ever  saw  came  near  cost- 
ing two  lives.  But  the  straight  flush,  though 


8o  Queer  Luck 

it  was  in  its  day  a  modern  improvement, 
was  a  legitimate  development  and  not  a 
change  in  the  game.  The  principle  under- 
lying draw  poker  is  that  a  hand  is  valuable 
exactly  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty  en- 
countered in  getting  it — that  is,  according 
to  the  smallness  of  the  chance  you  have  of 
holding  it.  Fours  were  supposed  to  be  the 
hand  that  was  the  hardest  to  get,  and  so 
fours  were  the  winning  hand.  When  some- 
body discovered  that  the  chances  of  holding 
a  straight  flush  were  fewer  than  the  chances 
of  holding  fours,  the  straight  flush  took  its 
place  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  rules 
of  the  game  as  already  formulated.  The 
only  reason  it  was  not  played  from  the  first 
was  that  it  had  not  been  recognized  as  a  dis- 
tinct hand  before.  If  somebody  should  dis- 
cover a  new  hand — that  is,  a  new  combina- 
tion of  cards  with  a  positive,  individual 
character  of  its  own,  sharply  distinguishing 
it  from  any  other  combination — that  new 


Storms's  Straight  Flush  81 

hand  might  be  admitted  at  its  proper  value 
without  changing  the  rules." 

"  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  interest  in 
what  you  say,  no  doubt,"  said  the  man  with 
his  heels  on  the  fender,  "  but  it  occurs  to 
me  that  there  may  be  even  more  in  the  nar- 
ration of  the  circumstances  under  which  you 
made  the  acquaintance  of  a  straight  flush." 

"  Now  a  '  blaze,'  "  continued  the  other, 
"  is  certainly  a  distinct  hand,  but  it  seems 
to  be  a  characterless  sort  of  a  thing,  and  not 
entitled  to  much  respect.  And  the  same 
may  be  said  of  the  alternated  straight.  It 
is  true  that  an  effort  was  made  to  introduce 
the  blaze,  but  it  didn't  meet  with  much 
favor.  I  don't  think  it  is  played  anywhere 
now,  and  I  never  heard  of  anybody  seri- 
ously proposing  to  play  alternated  straights. 
Come  to  think  of  it,  the  straight  was  not  a 
part  of  the  old  original  game,  and  was  not 
universally  played  until  within  a  few  years. 

I  don't  imagine,  though  I  never  figured  on 
6 


8 2  Queer  Luck 

it,  that  it  is  any  harder  to  get  than  an  alter- 
nated straight,  but  it  has  a  stronger  charac- 
ter of  its  own.  That  proves  what  I  said, 
doesn't  it  ?" 

"About  those  two  lives,"  said  the  other, 
lazily  moving  his  heels  a  little  further  apart. 

"  It  was  up  in  the  pine  woods  of  Minne- 
sota. I  went  there  one  winter  to  escape  a 
galloping  consumption  that  my  doctor  pre- 
dicted, and  had  secured  a  job  with  Brown  & 
Martin,  a  firm  that  had  several  lumber  camps 
in  the  woods.  There  was  a  gang  of  about 
forty  men  in  our  camp,  and  there  was  noth- 
ing particularly  unusual  about  them,  except- 
ing perhaps  that  there  was  rather  more  card 
playing  at  night  than  the  bosses  liked  to 
have.  I  don't  know  that  it  is  prohibited  in 
any  of  the  camps — certainly  it  was  not  in 
those  days;  but  gambling  is  discouraged, 
for  the  men's  sakes  as  well  as  for  the 
bosses',  and  as  a  rule  there  isn't  much  going 
on. 


Storms's  Straight  Flush  83 

"  The  lumbermen  are  very  impatient  of 
restraint,  though,  and  no  intelligent  fore- 
man interferes  with  them  much  outside  of 
working  hours,  and  as  there  were  half  a 
dozen  men  in  our  camp  who  were  inveterate 
gamblers,  the  infection  spread  until  there 
were  four  or  five  poker  games  going  on  every 
night.  Our  foreman  was  a  Yankee  from 
Maine,  a  strapping  big  fellow,  who  did  not 
play  himself,  and  strongly  disapproved  of 
it,  but  he  had  a  great  amount  of  discretion, 
and  beyond  speaking  his  mind  freely  he  did 
not  try  to  stop  it. 

"  This  was  thirty  years  ago,  mind  you, 
and,  as  I  said  a  moment  ago,  the  straight 
was  not  played  everywhere.  We  played  it, 
however,  for  there  were  a  good  many  there 
who  had  become  familiar  with  it,  and  they 
insisted  on  it,  and  the  few  who  were  dis- 
posed to  grumble  at  it  as  a  new-fangled  no- 
tion submitted,  though  not  with  the  best 
grace.  If  you  remember,  the  straight,  as 


84  Queer  Luck 

played  then,  only  beat  two  pairs.  Its  value 
as  the  lowest  complete  hand  had  not  yet 
been  recognized." 

The  other  man  nodded. 

"  One  of  the  men  in  the  party  I  usually 
played  with  was  Will  Davison,  a  big,  over- 
bearing sort  of  man,  who  grew  sarcastic 
whenever  a  straight  was  played,  and  who 
made  it  a  point  to  throw  down  his  own 
hand  rather  than  draw  to  a  sequence  of  four, 
calling  attention  to  what  he  did. 

: '  I  have  no  use  for  a  boy's  game,'  he 
used  to  say  with  a  sneer,  but  the  rest  of  the 
party  overruled  him,  and  he  liked  the  game 
too  well  to  stay  out. 

"  One  night  a  young  law  student  from  Co- 
lumbia, who  had  gone  West  as  I  had  for  his 
health,  joined  our  game,  taking  the  sixth 
hand.  Davison  didn't  like  that,  either,  as  I 
noticed  by  his  expression,  but  Harry  Storms, 
the  student,  was  a  general  favorite,  and  the 
rest  of  us  all  welcomed  him,  although  we 


Storms' s  Straight  Flush  8$ 

were  a  little  surprised  when  he  offered  to 
play,  for  he  generally  spent  his  evenings 
poring  over  a  law  book,  and  we  had  thought 
he  didn't  know  the  cards. 

"  We  speedily  found  out  that  he  did, 
though,  and  that  he  was  not  afraid  to  back 
his  hand  for  what  he  thought  it  was  worth. 
We  played  only  a  quarter  limit,  and  as  a 
rule  we  kept  pretty  well  inside  of  the  limit, 
too,  so  that  it  was  not  often  that  there  was 
more  than  two  or  three  dollars,  even  in  a 
jack-pot.  Storms,  however,  generally  bet 
the  limit  when  he  bet  at  all,  and  as  the 
boldest  player  generally  sets  the  pace,  we 
were  soon  playing  a  stiff er  game  than  had 
been  seen  before  in  the  camp. 

"  It  was  stiff  er  than  I  was  used  to,  then, 
for  I  was  only  a  youngster,  and  hadn't 
played  much,  so  I  was  naturally  too  much 
absorbed  to  notice  for  some  time  that  we 
had  attracted  the  attention  of  a  number  of 
other  men,  who  crowded  around  us,  watch- 


86  Queer  Luck 

ing  the  play  in  silence.  When  I  did  look 
up  I  saw  Aleck  White,  our  foreman,  looking 
on  with  an  expression  of  profound  dissatis- 
faction, but  as  he  said  nothing  I  did  not 
feel  like  quitting  the  game,  especially  as 
the  luck  was  a  little  in  my  favor  just 
then. 

"  Presently  there  was  a  jack-pot  of  one 
dollar  and  fifty  cents  on  the  table,  and  as 
it  went  over  three  or  four  deals  without  an 
open,  it  was  sweetened  up  to  three  dollars 
and  odd  before  Storms  threw  in  a  quarter, 
saying,  '  I  open.'  I  sat  next  to  him,  and, 
looking  at  my  hand,  I  saw  that  I  had  aces 
up,  so  I  stayed,  of  course.  The  next  man 
stayed  also,  and  then  Davison,  who  was 
next,  raised  it  a  quarter.  There  seemed  to 
be  some  good  hands  around,  for  everybody 
stayed,  even  after  the  raise,  and  there  was 
nearly  five  dollars  on  the  board  before  the 
betting  began.  It  does  not  sound  very  ex- 
citing now,  but,  as  I  tell  you,  we  did  not 


Storms's  Straight  Flush  87 

play  heavily.  There  were  no  professional 
gamblers  among  us,  and  the  men  were  all 
working  for  day's  wages.  A  dollar  meant 
more  then  than  it  does  now  to  me,  and  it 
was  a  respectable  sum  to  any  of  us. 

"  Before  anybody  drew  cards  Storms  said  : 
'  Is  there  any  reason  why  we  shouldn't  raise 
the  limit  for  this  one  hand  ?  ' 

"  I  had  suspected  him  of  bluffing  once  or 
twice  before  that,  and  I  thought  this  was 
surely  a  bluff.  Moreover,  I  had  a  fool  sort 
of  confidence  that  I  was  going  to  get  an- 
other ace,  so  I  said  promptly:  'I  haven't 
any  objections.'  Davison  spoke  quickly, 
too.  '  Suits  me,'  he  said,  and  the  others, 
with  a  little  hesitation,  agreed;  '  Make  it 
fifty  cents  for  this  hand  only,'  said  one. 

"  '  Oh,  hell  ! '  growled  Davison.  '  Make 
it  a  dollar  while  you  are  about  it.'  I  felt 
that  this  was  too  heavy  for  me,  but  I  was 
too  excited  to  object,  and,  as  I  said,  the 
hands  must  have  been  pretty  good  all 


88  Queer  Luck 

around,  for  no  one  else  remonstrated,  and  a 
dollar  it  was. 

"  I  did  no  better  in  the  draw,  and  I  had 
sense  enough  to  lay  down  when  Storms  threw 
in  a  dollar,  for  he  had  stood  pat,  and  I 
didn't  feel  like  holding  up  a  bluff  from 
where  I  sat.  The  next  man  had  drawn  two, 
and  he  hesitated,  but  finally  put  up  his  dol- 
lar. Davison  held  his  hand  pat  also,  and 
raised  Storms  a  dollar.  The  next  two  laid 
down. 

"  Storms  raised  back,  and  my  left-hand 
neighbor  laid  down,  leaving  the  struggle  to 
the  two  men.  Davison  raised  it  five  dol- 
lars, and  one  of  the  men  who  had  pulled 
out  exclaimed :  '  I  thought  it  was  a  dollar 
limit  ?' 

"  *  Well,  what  business  is  it  of  yours  ?' 
said  Davison  savagely.  l  Storms  is  the  only 
one  that  has  a  right  to  kick.  If  he  is  afraid 
to  bet  I'll  stick  to  the  limit,'  he  added  with 
a  sneer. 


Storms's  Straight  Flush  89 

"  Storms  laughed.  '  I'll  see  your  five 
and  raise  you  ten '  he  said,  putting  up  the 
money. 

"  Davison  pulled  out  a  wallet  and,  put- 
ting a  ten-dollar  bill  on  the  table,  said: 
'  That's  all  the  money  I  have  with  me,  but 
I'll  give  you  an  order  on  my  pay  and  raise 
you  ten.' 

"  *  And  I'll  see  that  the  order  is  not 
paid,'  said  the  foreman,  quietly. 

"  There  was  a  moment's  silence,  and  then 
the  foreman  spoke  again.  '  I  don't  propose 
to  interfere  with  anything  you  fellows  do 
within  reason,  but  I  am  not  going  to  see  you 
robbing  your  families.' 

"  '  He  is  right,'  said  Storms.  '  I  don't 
want  to  play  out  of  reason.  Perhaps  we 
have  gone  far  enough.' 

" '  Oh,  well,  if  you  are  afraid,'  said 
Davison,  insultingly,  '  I  just  make  it  a 
call.' 

"  Storms  laughed  again   good-naturedly, 


90  Queer  Luck 

and  said :  '  Well,  let  it  go  at  that/  and  he 
laid  his  cards  down,  face  up. 

"  '  A  flush,  eh  ? '  shouted  Davison. 
'  That's  what  I  thought  you  had,'  and  show- 
ing down  a  king  full  on  aces,  he  reached  for 
the  pot.  '  That'll  beat  anything  but  fours.' 

"  '  But  my  hand  beats  fours,'  said  Storms, 
also  reaching  for  the  money.  'It's  a 
straight  flush.'  And  so  it  was,  jack  high. 
It  was  the  first  one  I  ever  saw  in  play. 

"  '  Straight  flush  be  damned  ! '  exclaimed 
Davison.  'Who  ever  heard  of  beating 
fours  ? '  And  as  Storms  still  attempted  to 
take  the  money,  Davison  grappled  him 
across  the  table,  shouting  and  cursing  vio- 
lently. 

"  Storms  struck  one  or  two  blows,  and 
good  ones,  before  any  of  us  could  interfere, 
but  as  Davison  had  him  in  a  close  grip  he 
could  not  spar,  and  he  seized  the  other's 
throat,  choking  off  his  wind  instantly. 

"  The  foreman  jumped  in,  of  course,  as 


Storms' s  Straight  Flush  91 

did  two  or  three  others,  but  Davison  had  a 
knife  out  in  an  instant,  and  if  he  hadn't  been 
caught  in  time  would  have  stabbed  his  an- 
tagonist. As  it  was,  it  was  a  difficult  thing 
to  pull  them  apart,  for  their  blood  was  up, 
and  they  would  certainly  have  killed  each 
other  if  they  hadn't  been  stopped.  When 
we  dragged  them  apart  they  struggled  like 
two  wild  beasts.  And  that  broke  up  poker 
playing  in  that  camp  for  the  winter,  for  the 
foreman  put  his  foot  down  hard." 

"And  who  took  the  pot?"  asked  the 
man  with  his  feet  on  the  fender. 

"  The  foreman  made  them  divide  it.  I 
don't  know  as  he  had  any  right  to,  but  his 
word  was  law  with  us  then." 


For  a  Senate  Seat 


For  a  Senate  Seat 

A  POKER  GAME  IN  MINNESOTA    THA  T  HAD 
POLITICAL  IMPORTANCE 

"  Poker  has  often,  been  called  the  na- 
tional game,"  said  the  gray-haired  young- 
looking  man  in  the  club  smoking-room, 
"  but  I  fancy  there  are  few  citizens  who 
fully  appreciate  how  much  influence  it  has 
exerted  on  the  destinies  of  the  nation  in 
one  way  and  another.  We  hear  stories  now 
and  again  of  the  winning  and  losing  of  for- 
tunes, and  sometimes  how  large  estates  and 
mining  properties  have  been  staked  on  the 
chances  lying  between  two  hands.  And 
every  lobbyist  in  the  country  is  familiar 
with  the  old  device  of  losing  large  sums  in 
a  friendly  game  with  a  legislator  whose  vote 
is  desired  on  one  side  or  the  other.  Such 


9 6  Queer  Luck 

things,  naturally  enough,  sway  public  inter- 
ests as  well  as  private  to  no  small  extent, 
but  I  have  seen  a  seat  in  the  United  States 
Senate  lost  on  four  queens." 

"  Of  course  you  are  not  talking  seriously," 
said  one  of  the  party. 

"  But  I  am,"  was  the  answer,  "  seriously 
and  literally.  It  happened  in  Minnesota 
soon  after  the  war.  Political  conditions  in 
that  part  of  the  West  were  very  different  to 
what  they  are  now,  and  in  fact  all  other 
conditions  were,  too.  It  was  at  about  the 
beginning  of  the  real  growth  of  the  North- 
west. The  value  of  the  wheat  fields  had 
been  learned,  but  the  Swedish  and  Nor- 
wegian immigration  was  in  its  infancy,  and 
the  lumber  industry,  that  afterward  grew  to 
such  enormous  proportions,  was  then  mak- 
ing comparatively  few  men  rich.  Minne- 
apolis was  a  small  town  on  the  south  side 
of  the  river,  and  St.  Anthony  was  a  town  of 
the  same  size  on  the  other  side.  Now  it's  all 


For  a  Senate  Seat  97 

one  city,  but  at  that  time  nobody  dreamed 
of  St.  Paul  being  eclipsed  in  size  or  import- 
ance. 

"  I  was  knocking  about  late  one  summer 
at  that  period,  and  had  made  many  friends 
around  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis,  some  of 
whom  were  State  officials,  and  I  had  heard 
much  talk  of  the  struggle  there  was  to  be  in 
the  next  Legislature  over  the  election  of  a 
Senator.  Two  men  were  in  the  race,  and 
as  they  were  both  popular  the  contest  was 
likely  to  be  a  close  one.  Party  questions 
did  not  enter  in,  for  the  State  was  strongly 
Republican,  and  no  Democrat  stood  a  show. 
But  which  of  the  two  Republicans  would 
carry  the  Legislature  was  a  matter  of  great 
doubt,  and  I  saw  bets  made  on  the  issue  as 
early  as  the  first  of  September.  As  the  time 
of  election  drew  near,  it  was  evident  that 
the  choice  for  Senator  was  going  to  govern 
the  nomination  of  candidates  for  the  Legis- 
lature, and  as  both  the  Senatorial  aspirants 
7 


98  Queer  Luck 

were  long  of  head  as  well  as  long  of  purse 
they  were  using  all  •  the  influence  they  had 
in  the  county  conventions  which  were  to  be 
held  early  in  October. 

"  Right  there  was  where  the  importance  of 
the  lumber  industry  came  in.  The  money 
on  which  the  lumbermen  in  the  upper  coun- 
ties lived  came  to  them  mostly  through 
Minneapolis  and  St.  Anthony,  and  the  per- 
fectly legitimate  business  relations  between 
them  and  the  business  men  of  those  two 
cities  naturally  gave  the  latter  much  influ- 
ence among  the  former.  There  was  a  rol- 
licking, happy-go-lucky  man  in  Minneapolis 
whom  everybody  called  Doc  Martin,  for  no 
reason  that  I  could  discover  except  that  he 
wasn't  a  doctor.  He  was  part  owner  of  a 
saw-mill,  and  spent  the  most  of  each  winter 
in  the  woods  with  his  men.  He  was  cred- 
ited with  being  as  influential  as  any  one 
there  was,  among  voters,  but  he  had  a  rival 
in  another  man  named  Gilmartin,  who  was 


For  a  Senate  Seat  99 

a  logger  himself,  but  had  for  a  dozen  sea- 
sons been  foreman  of  one  gang  or  another. 
Martin  was  a  rich  man,  but  Gilmartin  was 
seldom  flush,  excepting  in  the  spring,  when 
he  had  drawn  his  winter's  pay.  These  two 
men  were  known  to  be  strong  partisans,  one 
favoring  one  of  the  would-be  Senators,  and 
the  other  the  other,  and  it  was  generally 
thought  that  they  would  both  go  electioneer- 
ing when  the  county  conventions  were  held. 

"  The  week  before  that  was  to  happen  I 
was  one  of  a  party  who  drove  from  Minne- 
apolis to  a  road-house  on  the  Fort  Snelling 
road  near  the  Minnehaha  Falls,  partly  for 
the  enjoyment  of  the  moonlight  and  partly 
for  a  game  supper  such  as  the  house  was 
famous  for  providing.  Martin  was  one  of 
the  party,  and  as  there  were  two  or  three 
other  high  rollers  with  us,  I  had  made  up 
my  mind  that  it  would  be  daybreak  before 
we  would  get  back. 

"  I  was  right,  but  before  the  night  was 


ioo  Queer  Luck 

over  we  had  more  excitement  than  I  had  ex- 
pected. We  had  had  the  supper  and  an 
abundance  of  good  wine  with  it,  and  were 
sitting  around  the  table  enjoying  some  rarely 
good  punch  when  somebody  proposed  poker. 
No  one  objected,  and  in  a  few  minutes  there 
were  two  games  in  progress,  for  there  were 
eleven  in  the  party.  Six  played  at  one  ta- 
ble, and  Martin  and  I  and  three  others  were 
at  the  other.  The  game  was  a  fairly  stiff 
one,  ten  dollars  being  the  limit,  and  the 
cards  ran  well  enough  to  build  up  some 
heavy  pots.  We  had  all  indulged  freely 
enough  to  give  ourselves  thoroughly  to  the 
enjoyment  of  the  hour,  though  we  had  not 
been  drinking  heavily,  and  there  wasn't  a 
man  there  under  the  influence.  Altogether 
it  was  a  delightful  occasion.  Suddenly  the 
door  opened,  and  Gilmartin  looked  in. 

"  '  I  don't  want  to  "  rough  in,"  boys,'  he 
said,  '  but  I  stopped  here  to  get  supper  on 
the  way  home,  and  the  landlord  told  me 


For  a  Senate  Seat  101 

you  were  here,  so  I  thought  I'd  ask  you  to 
drink  with  me. ' 

"  He  was  greeted  heartily,  for  everybody 
knew  and  liked  him,  and  a  bumper  of  punch 
was  poured  out  for  him  forthwith,  his  invi- 
tation being  peremptorily  laid  on  the  table. 
Then,  as  a  matter  of  course,  it  was  sug- 
gested that  he  take  a  hand  in  the  game,  and 
he  being  more  than  willing,  he  sat  at  our 
table. 

"'We're  playing  ten-dollar  limit,  Gil,' 
said  one  of  the  party,  who  knew  that  money 
was  not  always  plentiful  with  the  big  fellow. 
But  he  laughed  carelessly  and  said  :  '  That's 
all  right,'  as  he  pulled  out  a  hundred-dollar 
bill  and  bought  chips. 

"  Martin  looked  at  him  rather  keenly,  as 
I  thought,  for  an  instant,  and  said  : 

"  '  Been  out  to  St.  Paul  to-night,  Gil  ?  ' 

"'Yes,  I  have,'  said  Gilmartin,  and  I 
was  sure  that  I  saw  a  half -laughing  look  of 
defiance  on  his  face  as  he  answered.  It 


102  Queer  Luck 

puzzled  me  at  the  moment,  but  I  understood 
the  question  and  answer  afterward.  Martin, 
it  seemed,  suspected  that  Gilmartin  had  per- 
fected his  arrangements  to  go  electioneering, 
and  that  he  had  the  money  in  his  pocket 
with  which  he  was  expected  to  do  his 
work.  It  was  this  that  he  had  asked  by 
implication,  and  Gilmartin,  understanding 
him  perfectly,  and  knowing  that  he  could 
not  keep  his  secret  long  from  the  other, 
had  admitted  it.  As  it  proved,  he  had 
five  thousand  dollars  in  greenbacks  with 
him. 

"  The  game  went  on  without  any  special 
development  for  perhaps  half  an  hour  before 
I  noticed  that  Martin  was  playing  against 
Gilmartin  as  heavily  as  he  could,  and  only 
trying  to  hold  his  own  against  the  rest  of  us. 
Gilmartin  held  his  end  up  fairly,  and  was 
not  far  from  even  when  Martin  got  his  first 
good  chance  at  him.  It  was  a  pretty  play, 
too,  for  Gilmartin  thought,  as  the  rest  of  us 


For  a  Senate  Seat  103 

did,  that  Martin  was  bluffing  when  he  stood 
pat,  and  contented  himself  with  coming  in 
without  a  raise  every  time  it  came  his  bet, 
until  the  rest  of  us  had  dropped  out.  Then 
he  raised  Gilmartin  the  limit.  Gilmartin 
had  a  jack-high  flush  and  was  confident,  so 
they  had  it  back  and  forth  till  Gilmartin 
called  and  gave  up  four  hundred  dollars  to 
an  ace  flush. 

"  That  was  the  heaviest  pot  for  a  long 
time,  but  presently  the  two  got  together 
again,  and  Gilmartin  lost  two  hundred 
more.  Then  he  grew  a  little  nervous  and 
Martin  grew  cooler.  Then  Gilmartin  be- 
came angry,  though  he  controlled  himself 
tolerably  well,  and  I  was  sure  that  Martin 
would  beat  him.  So  it  proved.  It  came 
my  deal  soon  after  in  a  jack-pot,  and  Gil- 
martin  opened  it.  We  all  came  in,  stand- 
ing Martin's  raise.  I  had  aces,  but  didn't 
better  in  the  draw,  so  I  laid  down  after  one 
raise.  Martin  drew  three  cards,  as  did  each 


104  Queer  Luck 

of  the  others,  excepting  Gilmartin,  who  drew 
two.  He  bet  the  limit,  and  the  next  man 
laid  down.  Martin  raised  it  the  limit,  and 
another  man  and  myself  dropped  out.  Gil- 
martin  raised,  and  the  fourth  man  threw 
down  his  cards.  That  left  the  two  alone 
again,  and  Martin  raised  back. 

"'Ten  better  than  you,'  said  Gilmartin 
savagely,  and  then  with  a  short  laugh  he 
added,  '  You  won't  get  away  with  me  this 
time.' 

"  '  If  you  think  so,'  said  Martin  quietly, 
'  what  do  you  say  to  taking  off  the  limit  ?' 

"'That  will  suit  me  exactly,'  said  Gil- 
martin,  and  Martin  pushed  up  his  last  blue 
chip  and  a  hundred-dollar  bill. 

"  '  I'll  see  that  and  go  you  five  hundred 
better,'  said  Gilmartin  eagerly,  and  he 
skinned  the  bills  off  from  a  big  roll  that 
he  drew  from  an  inside  pocket. 

"  '  Does  my  check  go  ? '  asked  Martin. 
'  I  haven't  so  much  money  with  me.' 


For  a  Senate  Seat  105 

"  '  It's  good  for  fifty  thousand,  and  you 
know  it,'  said  Gilmartin. 

"  *  I  raise  you  a  thousand,'  said  Martin. 

"  '  And  I'll  go  you  a  thousand  better,'  ex- 
claimed the  other.  He  was  getting  excited, 
but  nobody  dared  to  speak.  It  was  a  seri- 
ous matter  to  interfere  in  a  game  like  that. 

"  '  A  thousand  better,'  was  the  response. 

"  Gilmartin  hesitated.  He  looked  at  his 
cards  and  thought  for  a  moment.  Then  he 
counted  his  money. 

'"I'll  have  to  call  you,'  he  said  finally, 
'  for  I've  only  got  twelve  hundred  left.' 

"  Martin's  face  was  perfectly  impassive. 
He,  too,  hesitated  a  moment,  and  then  he 
spoke. 

'"I'll  put  up  five  thousand  more,  if  you 
want  to  play  for  it,'  he  said. 

•"  '  But  how  can  I  ?  I  tell  you  I  haven't 
any  more  money,'  said  Gilmartin,  looking 
puzzled. 

"  '  If  you  will  give  me  your  promise  to 


io6  Queer  Luck 

go  as  far  south  as  St.  Louis  for  sixty  days, 
and  tell  nobody  that  you  are  going,  I'll  take 
that  as  an  equivalent  for  the  five  thousand,' 
said  Martin  very  slowly  and  distinctly. 

"  Gilmartin  flushed.  He  knew  that  every- 
body in  the  room  understood  the  proposi- 
tion. He  was  asked  to  sell  out  his  honor, 
for  going  away  in  that  fashion  meant  betray- 
ing his  employer  and  running  away  with  his 
money,  as  well  as  leaving  him  in  the  lurch. 
I  expected  to  hear  an  indignant  outburst  of 
invective  and  abuse,  and  indeed  the  man 
was  about  to  speak  when  another  thought 
seemed  to  strike  him,  and  he  grew  deathly 
white.  The  gambling  fever  had  seized  him, 
and  he  looked  at  his  cards  again. 

"  While  he  was  hesitating  Martin  spoke 
again,  and  the  devilish  coolness  of  his 
speech  made  me  shudder. 

"  '  I  need  not  say  anything  to  impress  on 
the  minds  of  all  the  gentlemen  present  that 
this  is  a  private  party,'  he  said,  '  and  that 


For  a  Senate  Seat  107 

nothing  which  happens  here  can  be  told  out- 
side while  it  can  by  any  possibility  work  in- 
jury to  any  one  concerned.' 

"  Gilmartin  looked  round  at  every  man 
in  the  room,  and  seeing  by  our  faces  that 
we  all  recognized  the  obligation,  he  seemed 
nerved,  as  Martin  had  meant  that  he  should 
be,  to  take  the  risk. 

"  '  I'll  take  the  bet,'  he  said  at  length, 
and  he  spoke  desperately.  '  But  God  help 
you,  Martin,  if  you  win  it.  I  don't  believe 
you  can,  for  I've  got  almost  a  sure  hand.' 

"'If  you  lose,'  said  Martin,  '  you  have 
no  cause  of  quarrel  with  me.  I  am -not 
forcing  you  to  play.  But  if  you  mean  en- 
mity, all  right.  I'll  gamble  your  friend- 
ship, too,  along  with  the  rest,  if  you  like.' 

"'So  be  it,'  said  Gilmartin.  'It's  a 
call,  then.  If  you  lose  you  pay  me  five 
thousand.  If  I  lose  I  leave.' 

"  '  Correct,'  said  Martin,  and  the  hands 
were  shown. 


io8  Queer  Luck 

"  Martin  had  drawn  to  kings  and  caught 
the  other  two.  Gilmartin  had  drawn  to 
three  queens  and  drawn  the  other. 

"  His  face  as  he  left  the  room  was  such  a 
picture  as  I  hope  never  to  see  again,  but  he 
kept  to  his  bargain.  At  least,  I  imagine  he 
did,  for  he  was  not  seen  again  in  that  part 
of  the  country  while  I  was  there.  I  never 
spoke  to  Martin  again,  but  his  friend  was 
elected  Senator  at  the  next  session  of  the 
Legislature  by  a  majority  of  two  votes. 
Both  men  are  dead,  or  I  would  not  have 
told  the  story." 


The  Bill  Went  Through 


The  Bill  Went  Through 

THE  USE   THE  LOBBY  USED   TO  MAKE  OF  . 
POKER 

"  It  is  no  news  to  the  average  newspaper 
reader,"  said  the  gray-haired  young-look- 
ing man,  "  that  there  has  been  a  vast  deal 
of  heavy  gambling  done  in  Washington  since 
the  capital  of  the  nation  was  established  in 
that  city.  Stories  without  number  have 
been  told  and  retold  about  famous  states- 
men who  have  bucked  the  tiger  in  this  and 
that  resort,  whichever  one  happened  to  be 
famous  in  its  day,  and  who  have  won  and 
lost  enormous  sums  as  coolly  as  Englishmen 
of  equally  high  rank  are  said  to  have  done 
when  Pitt  and  Fox  played  in  the  London 
clubs.  For  one,  I  have  little  doubt  that 


112  Queer  Luck 

many  of  these  stories  are  substantially  true, 
though  most  of  them  are  probably  embroid- 
ered around  the  edges.  Men  who  make 
national  politics  the  game  of  their  lives 
learn  to  love  excitement,  and  next  to  poli- 
tics, gambling  is  about  the  most  exciting 
thing  out.  Some  people  even  put  it  ahead 
of  politics. 

"  I  am  the  more  inclined  to  believe  these 
stories,  too,  because  I  remember  a  good 
deal  about  what  happened  in  a  certain  poker 
club  in  that  city  a  little  while  before  the 
Credit  Mobilier  scandal.  I  was  a  youngster 
then,  but  I  had  some  reputation  as  a  cool- 
headed  player,  and  I  was  fond  of  the  game, 
so  it  was  not  strange  that  after  I  had  been 
properly  introduced,  and  had  sat  in  once  or 
twice,  I  got  in  the  way  of  dropping  in  fre- 
quently, and  finally  of  spending  most  of  my 
evenings  in  this  particular  club-house  until 
after  Congress  adjourned  and  the  season  was 
over.  My  business  there  was  accomplished 


The  Bill  Went  Through        113 

at  about  the  same  time,  and  I  left  the  city, 
not  to  return  for  several  years. 

"  The  place  was  a  modest-looking  house, 
just  off  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  It  had  been 
designed  for  a  private  residence,  and  was 
used  as  such  by  the  proprietor,  for,  though 
it  was  called  a  club,  it  was  nothing  more 
than  a  private  gambling-house.  No  one 
could  get  admittance  without  a  personal  in- 
troduction by  some  one  whom  the  proprietor 
knew  and  trusted,  but  once  inside,  a  visitor 
was  made  to  feel  as  if  he  almost  owned  the 
place. 

"  I  never  saw  anything  but  poker  played 
in  the  house,  but  the  game  was  sometimes 
for  tremendous  stakes.  Everybody  seemed 
to  have  almost  unlimited  money  who  came 
there  to  play,  for  money  was  plentiful  in 
Washington  that  year,  and  a  thousand-dol- 
lar bet  was  no  more  an  occasion  for  surprise 
than  one  of  fifty  dollars,  though  a  five-  or 
ten-dollar  limit  game  was  common  enough, 


H4  Queer  Luck 

too.  You  could  play  a  modest  game  if  you 
liked,  for  there  were  several  tables  going 
every  night,  but  if  you  preferred,  you  could 
generally  get  into  a  table  stakes  game  and 
flash  any  sort  of  a  roll  you  saw  fit.  I  never 
saw  a  professional  gambler  in  the  house,  ex- 
cepting the  proprietor.  He  was  one,  but 
he  never  played  in  his  own  place,  and  so 
far  as  I  know,  there  was  never  a  suspicion 
of  a  crooked  play  in  any  of  the  games  that 
I  saw. 

"  And  as  to  the  men  who  played  ?  Oh  ! 
well,  it  would  do  no  good  to  name  names. 
Some  were  men  whom  nothing  could  injure 
in  reputation.  Some  are  dead.  Others  are 
out  of  politics.  And  not  a  few  would  be 
sorry  indeed  to  be  mentioned  in  connection 
with  high  play  at  a  time  when  their  ostensi- 
ble income  was  not  sufficient  to  warrant  it. 
It  was  a  season,  however,  in  which  no  man 
prominent  in  official  circles  was  obliged  to 
be  without  money,  provided  he  could  be 


The  Bill  Went  Through        115 

induced  to  accept  it.  It  is.  enough  to  say 
that  one  of  the  unwritten  rules  of  the  '  club  ' 
— it  had  no  written  ones — was  that  any 
man's  I.  O.  U.  was  good,  but  that  it  must 
be  taken  up  within  forty-eight  hours.  And 
I  never  heard  of  an  infraction  of  the  rule. 

"  In  one  or  two  cases  I  would  have  been 
glad  to  hear  that  the  man  giving  his  paper 
thus,  had  had  the  nerve  to  repudiate  it  and 
quit  the  game.  One  Congressman  in  par- 
ticular I  remember  who  might  have  been  a 
man  of  distinction  according  to  all  indica- 
tions, if  he  had  been  willing  to  shoulder  the 
odium  of  an  unpaid  '  debt  of  honor '  instead 
of  lending  himself  to  the  lobby  and  accept- 
ing money  for  his  vote.  How  do  I  know 
it  ?  How  does  a  man  know  anything  he 
doesn't  actually  see  ?  I  knew  the  circum- 
stances leading  up  to  his  ruin  well  enough. 

"  What  I  did  see  was  the  way  the  lobby 
tried  him  night  after  night,  for  it  was  an 
open  secret  that  this  particular  poker  club 


n6  Queer  Luck 

was  one  of  the  channels  through  which  the 
crack  lobbyists  of  the  season  reached  their 
men.  A  good  many  games  were  played  to 
lose,  in  the  big  parlor,  and  more,  I  reckon, 
in  some  of  the  small  rooms,  but  the  man 
who  won  in  such  a  game  was  always  a  man 
who  was  -wanted  for  something.  Of  course, 
when  it  came  to  handing  over  the  cold  cash 
as  a  specified  payment  for  a  particular  ser- 
vice, it  was  done  in  private,  but  different 
men  have  to  be  approached  in  different 
ways,  and  poker  affords  some  peculiar  op- 
portunities. 

"  This  Congressman — call  him  Smith  for 
short — was  particularly  wanted  in  one 
scheme  that  hung  fire  for  a  long  time  in  the 
committee-room.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
committee,  and  for  local  reasons  connected 
with  his  home  district  could  have  decided 
the  matter  either  way,  but  being  a  consci- 
entious fellow,  he  had  held  it  up  in  a  way 
that  exasperated  the  lobby  greatly.  He  had 


The  Bill  Went  Through        117 

been  approached  in  various  ways,  but  had 
proved  obdurate,  and  not  until  he  had  been 
introduced  at  the  club  did  there  seem  to  be 
any  chance  of  winning  him. 

"  Even  then  it  was  not  easy,  for  he  re- 
fused at  first  to  play  for  any  considerable 
money,  but  he  was  fond  of  the  game  and  it 
undid  him  at  the  last.  He  was  led  on  by 
degrees — the  finesse  and  astuteness  of  a 
really  gifted  lobbyist  is  something  almost 
diabolical — until,  being  a  fairly  skilful 
player,  he  found  himself  encouraged  to 
plunge.  Then  the  real  game  began. 

"  At  first  he  was  allowed  to  win.  I  say 
allowed,  because  the  men  against  him  were 
far  better  players  than  he,  though  they  did 
not  let  him  suspect  it.  One  night  he  won 
so  heavily  that  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
game  he  had  Jones's  I.  O.  U.  for  over  seven 
thousand  dollars.  Jones  was  the  man  the 
lobby  had  put  against  him,  and  what  he  had 
to  do  was  to  meet  Smith  privately  next  day 


n8  Queer  Luck 

and  hand  him  the  money,  and  at  the  same 
time  urge  the  passage  of  the  bill  they 
wanted.  Of  course  the  money  could  not  be 
considered  in  any  sense  a  bribe,  but  Smith, 
in  taking  it,  could  not  possibly  refuse  con- 
versation, and  would,  it  was  thought,  be  in- 
clined to  listen  favorably  to  a  man  who  lost 
money  to  him  as  gracefully  as  Jones  did. 
He  couldn't  be  expected  to  know,  and  as  a 
fact,  he  did  not  know,  how  easy  it  was  for 
Jones  to  lose  gracefully,  since  the  money 
was  furnished  to  him  for  the  purpose. 

"  It  was  the  most  delicate  sort  of  diplo- 
macy, but  it  failed  completely.  Smith  was 
gentleman  enough  to  feel  the  temptation, 
and  man  enough  to  withstand  it.  The  loss 
of  the  money  was  not  considered  for  a  mo- 
ment by  the  lobby.  They  had  money  to 
burn.  But  the  failure  to  get  Smith  was  im- 
portant, so  other  tactics  were  employed. 

"  There  was  no  necessity  for  asking  him 
to  give  Jones  his  revenge  at  the  game,  for 


The  Bill  Went  Through        119 

he  was  by  this  time  in  the  fever  of  play,  and 
he  was  at  the  club  every  night,  looking  for 
the  opportunity  that  somebody  was  always 
ready  to  give  him.  It  did  seem  almost 
pitiful  to  see  a  man  of  his  talents  and  char- 
acter fluttering  like  a  big  fool  moth  around 
a  flame  that  was  almost  certain  to  destroy 
him,  but  it  didn't  seem  to  be  anybody's 
business  to  tell  him  what  he  ought  to  have 
known  for  himself.  At  any  rate,  nobody 
made  it  his  business.  I,  for  one,  consid- 
ered that  it  was  the  part  of  wisdom  to  say 
nothing.  It's  a  good  safe  rule  generally, 
and  I  was  too  young  a  man  to  play  mentor 
to  one  who  had  reached  his  rank. 

"  Nothing  was  done  hastily.  The  lobby 
never  makes  mistakes  of  that  sort.  Smith 
was  allowed  to  play  along  for  perhaps  a 
week  before  Jones  was  put  at  him  again.  I 
don't  know  exactly,  but  I  think  a  part  of 
the  calculation  was  to  wait  till  his  luck 
should  turn,  for  he  had  been  winning  before 


I2O  Queer  Luck 

he  made  his  big  stake  from  Jones,  and  he 
continued  to  win  for  several  nights,  though 
he  got  no  very  important  money  after  that. 

11  Luck  does  change,  though,  and  in  a 
week  he  was  losing,  not  heavily,  but  enough 
to  whet  his  desire,  and  it  was  noticeable 
that  he  grew  more  and  more  eager  for  high 
play.  The  time  had  come  for  the  decisive 
stroke,  and  Jones,  of  course,  was  on  hand  at 
the  proper  time  to  deliver  it. 

"  There  were  only  four  players  in  the 
game  that  night,  and  it  was  played  in  the 
big  parlor.  The  lobby  never  made  the  mis- 
take of  seeking  privacy  unnecessarily,  and 
Smith,  though  he  was  infatuated  with  the 
game,  was  the  sort  of  man  to  take  alarm 
quickly  at  anything  that  looked  suspicious. 
So  it  happened  that  I  was  one  of  the 
lookers-on  at  a  memorable  contest. 

"Smith  didn't  know  it,  but  there  were 
three  against  him  that  night,  although  one 
of  them  was  a  fellow-Congressman  who  was 


The  Bill  Went  Through        121 

not  known  to  be  interested  in  the  scheme, 
and  another  was  a  Westerner,  who  had  only 
been  introduced  at  the  club  two  or  three 
nights  before,  and  had  only  played  there 
once.  The  fourth  man,  of  course,  was 
Jones. 

"  The  play  went  on  for  half  an  hour  be- 
fore anything  serious  happened.  Occasion- 
ally there  would  be  some  pretty  big  bets, 
but  they  all  won  and  lost  so  nearly  even 
that  no  one  was  much  ahead.  Then  to  an 
outsider  it  became  evident  that  each  of  the 
other  three  was  playing  for  Smith's  money, 
although  Smith  himself  did  not,  I  believe, 
suspect  anything  of  the  sort.  As  I  said,  the 
play  was  straight  enough,  but  three  first- 
class  players  can  bring  any  ordinary  player 
to  grief  easily  enough  in  a  four-handed 
game  without  any  crooked  manipulation  of 
the  cards,  if  they  work  in  concert,  and 
Smith  was  soon  losing  heavily. 

"  They  knew  the  size  of  his  pile  pretty 


122  Queer  Luck 

accurately,  for  they  had  kept  tabs  on  him 
closely  ever  since  he  began  playing,  and 
there  wasn't  a  detail  of  his  outside  business 
that  hadn't  been  studied  carefully  before- 
hand. So  when  he  had  been  coaxed  along 
to  a  ten-dollar  ante,  with  occasional  bets  of 
as  much  as  five  hundred,  they  knew  that 
they  could  reach  his  uttermost  limit  easily 
enough,  for  he  couldn't  have  raised  much 
over  twelve  thousand  dollars  in  cash  to  save 
his  life,  without  getting  outside  help  some- 
where. Twelve  thousand  dollars  isn't  much 
of  a  wad  to  sit  in  a  game  with,  if  there  is 
unlimited  money  against  you,  and  the  bet- 
ting runs  up  into  the  hundreds,  so  Smith 
was  on  pretty  thin  ice  all  the  time,  though 
he  didn't  realize  it  until  it  was  too  late. 

"  He  had  four  or  five  thousand  with  him 
in  money,  but  when  that  was  gone  the  rule 
of  the  place  made  it  fatally  easy  for  him  to 
go  on,  and  I  really  believe  that  he  lost  his 
head  as  the  play  went  on,  and  he  gave  check 


The  Bill  Went  Through        123 

after  check  in  payment  for  more  chips. 
The  proprietor  understood  well  enough  what 
was  going  on,  and  he  took  the  checks  with 
perfect  readiness,  knowing  that  he  would  be 
protected.  Smith  bought  again  and  again, 
keeping  no  memorandum,  until  he  was  in  it 
for  over  ten  thousand. 

"  Then  came  the  deciding  hand.  We  did 
not  play  straight  flushes  then,  so  fours  of 
any  denomination  made  even  a  stronger 
hand  than  they  do  now,  and  Smith  caught 
four  eights.  There  isn't  a  poker  player  on 
earth  who  wouldn't  look  on  that  as  a  chance 
to  recoup,  and  very  few  who  wouldn't  risk 
their  pile  on  the  chance.  Smith  did  it  any- 
how, and  came  to  grief.  He  risked  more 
than  his  pile,  for,  as  it  happened,  the  other 
Congressman  held  a  good  hand,  too,  and  bet 
freely  for  a  little  while.  Jones  had  four 
queens  and  scooped  the  pot.  The  West- 
erner wasn't  in  it. 

"  All  the  chips  were  in  the  center  when 


124  Queer  Luck 

Smith  raised  it  a  thousand,  putting  up  a 
marker  in  the  shape  of  an  I.  O.  U.,  hastily 
scribbled.  The  other  Congressman  dropped 
out,  and  Jones  came  back  with  another  thou- 
sand. Smith  was  fairly  white,  but  he 
reached  over  and  changed  the  figures  on  his 
I.  O.  U.  from  $1,000  to  ,$4,000,  saying 
quietly,  '  Two  better.' 

"  'Two  more  than  you,'  said  Jones,  just 
as  quietly,  laying  four  one-thousand-dollar 
bills  on  the  table.  And  then  there  was 
dead  silence  in  the  room. 

"  Smith  paused,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that 
I  could  read  his  thoughts.  He  was  eager 
enough  to  go  on  with  the  play,  but  though 
he  did  not  know,  and  could  not  stop  just 
then  to  reckon  how  deeply  he  was  dipped, 
he  knew  he  was  over  his  head.  Moreover, 
four  eights,  strong  as  it  was,  was  not  an  in- 
vincible hand,  and  his  better  sense  urged 
him  to  call. 

"  Finally  he  did,  and  when  the  showdown 


The  Bill  Went  Through        125 

came,  I  thought  for  a  moment  he  would 
faint.  He  rallied,  however,  and  like  the 
gallant  fellow  he  was,  made  some  light  re- 
mark with  a  half-laugh  as  he  rose  from  the 
table. 

"  '  I've  got  enough  for  to-night,'  he  said, 
and  the  game  was  over.  I  never  knew  all 
the  circumstances  of  the  settlement,  but  I 
know  the  bill  was  reported  favorably  by  the 
committee  within  a  week,  and  that  Smith 
used  to  hang  around  the  club-house  more 
persistently  than  ever  for  the  rest  of  the  ses- 
sion. As  for  Jones,  I  never  saw  him  after 
that  night." 


Poker  for  High  Stakes 


Poker  for  High  Stakes 

A   BOUT  WITH  CARD  SHARPERS  ON  A 
MISSISSIPPI  BOA  T 

"  I  have  always  found  it  hard  to  believe 
the  stories  I  used  to  read  about  the  luxury 
of  travel  and  the  magnificence  of  the  ap- 
pointments on  the  great  Mississippi  River 
steamboats,"  said  the  gray-haired  young- 
looking  man  in  the  club  smoking-room. 
"  It  seems  to  be  the  generally  accepted  be- 
lief that  forty  years  ago  or  so  people  went 
up  and  down  on  the  bosom  of  the  Father  of 
Waters  in  floating  palaces,  enjoying  some- 
thing like  the  extreme  of  sumptuous  luxury. 
Maybe  that  is  true.  I  didn't  travel  the 
river  so  long  ago  as  that,  and,  of  course,  I 
can't  say  what  the  condition  of  things  may 
9 


130  Queer  Luck 

or  may  not  have  been  when  I  wasn't  there 
to  see.  What  I  can  say  positively  is  that  if 
it  was  true  in  those  days,  the  war  or  some 
other  disturbing  cause  changed  things  very 
materially  before  I  became  as  familiar  as  I 
did  afterward  with  the  river  boats.  My  no- 
tion is  that  the  whole  thing  is  a  tradition, 
resting  on  very  little  foundation  excepting 
comparison.  The  mere  fact  of  having  a 
stateroom  to  sleep  in,  with  only  one  stran- 
ger as  a  room-mate,  and  a  seat  at  a  table 
with  room  for  a  waiter  to  pass  behind  you, 
served  to  make  travelers  at  that  time  think 
they  were  in  luxury,  because  they  hadn't  ex- 
perienced it  before.  And  I  imagine,  from 
what  I  know  of  a  later  period,  that  that  was 
about  the  extent  of  the  luxury.  Certainly 
none  of  the  boats  I  was  ever  on,  in  the  '6os 
and  '705,  compared  with  the  North  River  or 
the  Sound  boats  of  the  same  time.  And 
even  those  would  not  seem  very  luxurious  to 
travelers  of  the  present  day. 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  131 

"  But  there  were  a  good  many  stories  told 
about  the  old-time  Mississippi  boats  that  I 
am  fully  prepared  to  believe.  That  the 
game  of  poker  flourished  on  the  river  as  it 
never  has  elsewhere,  before  or  since,  seems 
entirely  probable.  I  have  seen  games  that 
made  me  hold  my  breath  because  of  the  size 
of  the  stakes,  and  because  of  the  fact  that  I 
knew  the  players  were  all  armed,  and  a  shot 
or  a  stab  was  certain  to  follow  a  hasty  word 
or  a  suspicious  act. 

"  It  was  on  a  trip  from  Memphis  to  Nat- 
chez that  I  first  saw  a  woman  gamble  in 
public.  The  boat  wasn't  crowded,  but  there 
were  perhaps  fifty  passengers  on  board,  and 
among  them  were  six  or  eight  ladies  and' 
this  woman.  That  she  was  a  social  outlaw 
was  evident  enough  at  a  glance.  Not  only 
were  her  clothes  of  a  fashion  too  pronounced 
for  respectability  and  her  jewelry  too  osten- 
tatious for  daylight  wear,  but  there  was  a 
frank  devilry  in  her  eye,  and  a  defiant  swing 


132  Queer  Luck 

— almost  a  swagger — in  her  carriage  that 
told  the  story  all  too  plainly.  Her  be- 
havior was  correct  enough.  She  was,  or 
seemed  to  be,  traveling  alone,  and  she  took 
the  somewhat  too  ostentatious  avoidance  of 
the  ladies  in  perfectly  good  part,  pretend- 
ing to  be  utterly  unconscious  of  it,  and  ig- 
noring them  as  completely  as  they  did  her. 
Neither  did  she  give  any  overt  encourage- 
ment to  the  efforts  that  some  of  the  men 
made  to  cultivate  her  acquaintance.  It  was 
evident  that  while  she  took  no  pains  to  con- 
ceal her  character,  she  did  not  propose  to 
make  herself  obnoxious.  Naturally  every 
one  was  curious  to  know  who  she  was,  and  I 
soon  learned,  as  I  supposed  the  other  pas- 
sengers all  did,  that  she  was  a  notorious 
character  in  New  Orleans,  where  she  was 
known  as  *  Flash  Kate.'  What  her  business 
had  been  in  Memphis  I  did  not  hear,  but  a 
dozen  stories  were  told  of  her  recklessness 
and  general  cussedness,  and  among  other 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  133 

things  it  was  said  that  she  was  a  confirmed 
gambler. 

"  After  supper  the  first  evening  we  were 
on  board,  the  tables  in  the  main  saloon  were 
cleared,  and,  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of 
course,  two  games  of  poker  were  soon  in 
progress.  It  was  plain  enough  that  two  of 
the  men  in  the  game  that  I  watched  at  first 
were  professionals,  but  the  game  was  small, 
and  I  found  no  great  excitement  in  it, 
though  it  was,  in  a  way,  interesting  to  no- 
tice how  easily  the  others  were  being  fleeced. 
Tiring,  after  a  time,  of  watching  so  bold  a 
fraud,  I  sauntered  over  to  the  other  table, 
and  found  a  very  different  game  in  progress. 

"  In  the  first  place,  it  was  a  bigger  game. 
They  were  playing  table  stakes,  and  each 
man  had  a  wad  of  greenbacks  lying  along- 
side his  chips.  White  chips  were  a  dollar, 
and  bets  of  ten  or  twenty  at  once  were  com- 
mon. There  were  several  thousand  dollars 
in  sight,  and  it  looked  as  if  any  moment 


134  Queer  Luck 

might  bring  on  a  struggle  between  hands 
that  would  draw  down  big  money.  Then  it 
did  not  take  long  for  me  to  determine  that 
two  of  the  men  in  this  game  also  were  pro- 
fessionals. The  third  man  at  the  table  I 
knew.  He  was  a  cotton-factor  from  New 
Orleans,  who  had  been  up  the  river  on  a 
business  trip  investigating  some  of  the  ad- 
vances he  and  his  partner  had  made  to  the 
planters.  He  was  young — not  over  thirty, 
I  should  say — but  I  knew  he  had  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  a  bold  speculator,  and  it  did 
not  seem  surprising  to  see  him  at  cards. 
The  other  two  men — there  were  five  playing 
— puzzled  me.  One  was  a  veteran  soldier. 
You  could  tell  that  from  his  military  bear- 
ing without  waiting  to  hear  him  addressed 
as  '  Major,'  but  an  ex-soldier  of  either  army 
might  be  anything  from  a  gambler  to  a  bank 
president.  The  other  was  a  nondescript. 
There  didn't  seem  to  be  any  points  about 
him  to  distinguish  him  from  anybody  else, 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  135 

but  I  afterward  learned  that  he  was  a  cattle- 
dealer. 

"  The  game  lasted  far  into  the  night,  and 
was  interesting  all  the  way  through,  but, 
somewhat  to  my  surprise,  there  was  no  very 
desperate  struggle  over  any  single  pot.  The 
hands  ran  fairly  well,  and  some  few  big  ones 
were  held,  but  no  two  unusual  ones  hap- 
pened to  be  held  in  the  same  deal.  So  far 
as  I  could  see,  the  play  was  absolutely  fair, 
and  I  wondered  a  little  that  the  gamblers 
should  attempt  no  tricks.  Later  on  I  un- 
derstood it.  They  were  laying  the  founda- 
tion for  the  second  night's  play,  and  their 
game  was  to  lose  a  little  at  the  first  sitting. 
Accordingly  they  did  so,  and  one  pulled  out 
soon  after  midnight,  saying  with  a  laugh 
that  he  had  lost  all  he  wanted  to.  The  cot- 
ton-factor was  a  loser,  too,  though  not  to 
any  very  serious  extent.  The  other  two 
were  ahead.  Altogether  it  was  a  pleasant 
sitting,  and  it  was  a  foregone  conclusion 


136  Queer  Luck 

that  the  game  would  be  renewed,  as  it  was, 
the  next  evening.  After  supper  the  five 
seated  themselves  without  loss  of  time,  and 
the  spectators  stood,  two  deep,  around  the 
table  inside  of  a  few  minutes.  The  clerk 
of  the  boat  was  banker,  and  furnished  the 
cards  and  sold  the  chips,  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

"  For  half  an  hour  or  so  there  was  no 
special  play,  but  the  lookers-on  were  pa- 
tient, and  the  excitement  grew  with  every 
deal.  It  was  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  ladies 
look  on  at  public  gambling,  but  there  were 
three  or  four  on  board  who  walked  in,  hold- 
ing their  husbands'  arms,  and  watched  the 
proceedings  with  keen  interest.  Presently, 
however,  '  Flash  Kate '  sauntered  up  alone, 
and  the  ladies  seeing  her,  quietly  withdrew. 
She  paid  no  attention  to  this,  but  stood  ap- 
parently absorbed  in  the  game,  and  edging 
forward  from  time  to  time  till  she  stood 
directly  behind  the  cotton-factor. 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  137 

"  The  betting  grew  heavier.  The  ante 
was  made  ten  dollars  and  the  bet  was  often 
fifty,  but  still  there  was  no  contest  between 
unusual  hands.  We  all  knew  it  was  com- 
ing, though,  and  I  noticed  that  three  or  four 
of  the  men  near  me  were  breathing  hard. 
*  Flash  Kate's  '  eyes  sparkled  like  a  snake's 
and  her  lips  were  parted,  but  she  was  as 
silent  as  we  all  were.  Even  the  players 
said  nothing  outside  of  the  few  words  the 
game  called  for. 

"  Suddenly  I  heard  a  sort  of  gasp  from 
the  man  next  me,  and  at  the  same  instant  I 
saw  the  fellow  they  called  Keene  hold  out 
an  ace.  It  was  cleverly  done,  and  yet  I 
marveled  at  his  nerve  in  trying  such  a  trick 
under  so  many  watching  eyes.  He  relied, 
of  .course,  on  his  skill,  which  was  really 
marvelous,  but  I  had  studied  such  things 
too  closely  to  be  mistaken,  and  as,  for  an 
instant,  I  met  the  eye  of  the  man  who  had 
gasped,  I  saw  that  he  was  equally  certain. 


138  Queer  Luck 

Neither  of  us  was  fool  enough  to  say  any- 
thing, for  interference  meant  fight,  and  I 
wondered  for  a  moment  what  would  follow, 
or  if  any  of  the  players  had  seen  it. 

"  It  was  the  deal  of  the  cattle-dealer, 
whose  name  was  Downing,  next,  and  as  he 
gathered  up  the  cards  he  threw  them,  with  a 
quick  motion,  on  the  floor,  saying :  '  Bring 
us  a  fresh  deck,  Mr.  Clerk,  of  another  col- 
or.' It  seemed  certain  that  he  had  seen 
Keene's  manoeuvre,  but  if  he  had  he  gave 
no  other  indication  of  it,  but  shuffled  and 
dealt  the  cards  as  coolly  as  if  nothing  out 
of  the  way  had  happened.  Neither  could  I 
see  any  trace  of  chagrin  or  disappointment 
on  Keene's  face  as  he  was  thus  cleverly 
checkmated.  He  looked  sharply  at  Down- 
ing for  an  instant,  as  if  to  see  whether  he 
had  really  been  discovered  or  not,  but  that 
worthy  did  not  return  the  glance,  and  the 
game  went  on. 

"  Soon  after  there  was  a  jack-pot  that  went 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  139 

around  several  times  before  it  was  opened, 
and  of  course  there  was  considerable  money 
up.  Presently,  on  the  cotton-factor's  deal, 
Alcott,  the  other  professional  gambler, 
opened  it  for  a  hundred  dollars,  and  all  the 
players  came  in.  That  made  big  money 
before  the  draw,  and  no  one  was  likely  to 
get  away  with  it  without  a  struggle.  The 
Major  drew  one  card,  and  without  waiting 
for  further  developments,  threw  his  hand 
into  the  discard  pile.  He  knew  he  wasn't 
strong  enough  to  bluff  that  crowd.  Alcott 
drew  three,  and  threw  another  hundred  into 
the  pot.  Downing  drew  two,  and  left  them 
lying  face  down,  while  he  threw  in  his  hun- 
dred. Keene  also  drew  two,  and  studied 
'  them  carefully  before  seeing  the  bet.  The 
cotton-factor  drew  three,  and  raised  it  a 
hundred.  I  could  not  see  his  cards,  but  I 
learned  afterward  that  he  had  a  queen  full. 

"  Alcott  had  three  of  a  kind  and  raised 
back,     frowning  carefully  lifted  one  corner 


140  Queer  Luck 

of  one  of  the  cards  he  had  drawn  and  lifted 
the  pot  two  hundred.  Keene  studied  a 
while  longer  and  finally  threw  down  his 
cards.  The  cotton-factor  was  game  and 
raised  it  five  hundred,  but  Alcott,  without  a 
quiver,  came  back  at  him  with  a  thousand 
more.  The  battle  was  on,  and  I  looked 
curiously  at  Downing.  I  was  more  inter- 
ested in  his  play  than  in  that  of  either  of 
the  others,  and  it  was  a  real  disappointment 
to  see  him  pick  up  his  whole  hand,  give  it 
a  quick  glance,  and  throw  it  down.  The 
cotton-factor  studied  his  hand  again,  more, 
it  seemed  to  me,  to  gain  time  than  to  make 
certain,  and  then  began  fingering  his  roll. 
At  length  he  spoke  a  little  hesitatingly : 

"  '  I  haven't  as  much  money  here  as  I'd 
like  to  have,  but  I'll  see  your  thousand 
and ' 

"  '  If  Monsieur  cares  to  back  his  hand 
and  will  allow  me,  I  will  put  up  any 
amount  he  likes.' 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  141 

"  It  was  '  Flash  Kate '  who  interrupted 
him — no  man  would  have  ventured  to  do  it 
— and  there  was  a  general  start  of  surprise. 
I  was  looking  at  Alcott,  and  I  was  sure  I 
saw  a  gleam  of  satisfaction,  totally  unmixed 
with  surprise,  on  his  face.  The  situation 
was  getting  complicated.  The  cotton-fac- 
tor flushed. 

"'  Thank  you,'  he  said,  coldly,  without 
even  looking  around,  '  but  I  never  play  with 
borrowed  money,  and  I  never  borrow  from  a 
woman.' 

" '  Pardon  me,'  said  '  Flash  Kate,'  as 
coolly  as  he,  '  I  hope  there  is  no  offense, 
Monsieur.  None  was  intended.'  She  spoke 
with  a  villainous  affectation  of  a  French 
accent. 

"  '  None  whatever,'  said  the  cotton-fac- 
tor, and  he  looked  at  his  cards  again.  He 
told  me  afterward  that  when  the  woman 
spoke  it  flashed  upon  him  that  there  was  a 
conspiracy  somewhere,  and  that  he  didn't 


142  Queer  Luck 

care  to  play  against  it.  Accordingly,  he 
pretended  to  study  a  moment  longer,  and 
then  threw  down  his  cards. 

"  Alcott  raked  in  the  money  without  a 
word,  and  the  cotton-factor,  putting  the  re- 
mains of  his  roll  in  his  pocket,  picked  up 
his  chips  and  left  the  table,  saying  politely 
as  he  arose :  '  Excuse  me,  gentlemen,  I 
think  I  have  had  enough.7 

"  There  was  a  moment's  hush.  The  four 
players  looked  around  the  spectators,  as  if 
to  see  if  any  one  cared  to  take  the  vacated 
seat,  but  no  one  gave  a  sign,  and  presently 
Keene  said : 

" '  Madame  is  interested  in  the  game. 
Perhaps  she  plays,  and  would  like  to  take  a 
hand.' 

"  '  Yes,  if  there  is  no  objection,'  she  said 
readily,  and  looked  from  one  to  another  of 
the  four  at  the  table.  Downing  said  noth- 
ing, but  there  was  a  grim  smile  on  his  face. 
The  Major  looked  uncomfortable,  but  he 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  143 

said  nothing,  either,  and  as  Alcott  said, 
'  Certainly  there  can  be  no  objection,'  the 
woman  took  the  seat  and  laid  a  handful  of 
money  on  the  table  in  front  of  her. 

"  From  the  moment  she  sat  down  I  felt 
morally  certain  that  it  was  a  case  of  three 
against  one,  for  the  Major  was  not  much  in 
evidence.  And  I  was  pretty  confident  that 
the  man  from  Texas  was  going  to  hold  his 
own,  as  indeed  he  did  triumphantly.  For 
nearly  twenty  minutes  his  play  was  a  perfect 
puzzle,  and  the  trio  got  actually  nervous  as 
he  threw  down  hand  after  hand  that  ordi- 
narily he  would  have  betted  heavily  on. 
They  stacked  the  cards,  not  once,  but  half 
a  dozen  times,  giving  him  excellent  cards, 
but  he  pretended  to  have  lost  his  nerve,  and 
played  now  with  seeming  rashness,  and  now 
with  cowardice,  but  never  risking  any  con- 
siderable amount,  until  he  had  them  rattled. 

"  Then  he  played  a  trick  that  was  worthy 
of  the  great  Herrmann  himself.  It  was  at 


144  Queer  Luck 

once  the  boldest  and  the  neatest  thing  I 
ever  saw  at  a  card  table,  and  although  I 
thought  I  saw  it  done,  I  was  not  certain 
about  it  till  he  told  me  of  it  after  we  had 
become  well  acquainted.  It  was  Keene's 
deal  and  Downing' s  cut,  and  the  latter, 
watching,  as  he  did,  every  motion  around 
the  table,  knew  that  Keene's  nerve  had 
failed  him,  and  that  he  had  not  this  time 
undertaken  to  set  up  the  cards.  His  time 
had  come,  and  as  he  leaned  over  to  cut  he 
substituted  another  pack  for  the  one  Keene 
had  shuffled.  It  sounds  like  an  impossibil- 
ity, but  wonderful  things  are  possible  to  a 
sleight-of-hand  performer,,  and  he  was  the 
best  I  ever  saw  at  a  card  table.  Not  one  of 
the  other  players  saw  it,  but  he  knew  that 
deal  every  card  that  every  player  would 
hold. 

"  And  they  held  wonderful  cards — all  but 
the  Major.  It  was  his  first  say,  and  he 
dropped  out.  Alcott  came  in  and  dis- 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  145 

carded  two  cards.  Downing  was  next.  He 
raised  it  twenty  and  threw  down  three  cards. 
Keene  raised  it  fifty,  and  threw  down  one. 
'  Flash  Kate  '  came  in  with  threes,  but  did 
not  raise.  Alcott  saw  the  raise,  and  Down- 
ing raised  it  a  hundred.  The  others  all 
came  in,  and  the  draw  was  dealt. 

"  They  all  filled,  of  course,  and  it  being 
Keene 's  deal,  they  suspected  nothing,  but, 
each  being  confident  of  his  own  strength, 
they  betted  wildly.  It  was  almost  too 
quick  work  to  follow,  but  in  a  few  minutes 
Keene  said  :  '  I  claim  a  show  for  my  pile,' 
and  pushed  the  money  already  in  the  pot  a 
little  to  one  side.  The  others  nodded,  and 
went  on  betting. 

"  Presently  Alcott  also  claimed  his  show, 
and  Downing  and  '  Flash  Kate '  went  on. 
She  must  have  had  five  or  six  thousand  with 
her,  for  there  was  over  twenty  thousand  on 
the  table  when  she  called,  with  what  ap- 
peared to  be  the  last  of  her  money,  and  it 


146  Queer  Luck 

came  to  a  showdown.  Keene  had  four 
jacks,  Alcott  four  queens,  '  Flash  Kate ' 
four  kings,  and  Downing  four  aces. 

"  For  an  instant  there  was  perfect  silence. 
Then  Alcott  and  Keene  made  a  movement 
simultaneously,  as  if  to  seize  the  money; 
but  Downing  was  quicker  than  they.  It  was 
impossible  to  say  where  he  drew  his  revolver 
from,  but  it  was  there  in  his  right  hand, 
while  he  coolly  pulled  in  the  money  with 
his  left. 

"  ( That  was  no  square  deal,'  shouted 
Alcott,  though  neither  he  nor  Keene  made 
any  fight. 

"  '  Think  not  ? '  drawled  Downing. 
*  Well,  you  ought  to  know.  Your  pal 
dealt  the  cards.  But  I  think  you  are  right. 
There's  been  some  queer  play  here  to-night. 
But  there's  one  honest  player  in  the  party, 
and  he  isn't  hurt  much.  As  for  me,  I  reck- 
on this'll  do  me,  unless  some  of  you  want 
to  play  any  more. '  And  he  grinned  at  the 


Poker  for  High  Stakes  147 

discomfited  gamblers,  who,  seeing  that  they 
had  the  worst  of  it,  said  no  more. 

'"  Flash  Kate'  took  it  the  best.  She 
looked  on  with  a  smile  while  this  was  going 
on,  and  when  it  was  over,  she  smiled  some 
more,  and  rising  from  her  chair,  said  sar- 
castically :  '  Monsieur  is  a  most  excellent 
player.'  And  she  went  to  her  stateroom 
without  another  word.  I  noticed  when  we 
reached  Vicksburg  that  she  and  Alcott  left 
the  boat  together. 

"  '  Those  three  were  pretty  slick  players,' 
said  Downing  to  the  crowd,  as  he  ordered 
champagne  for  everybody  who  would  take 
it,  '  but  they  ought  to  travel  in  Texas  for  a 
time  if  they  want  to  get  on  to  the  safest 
kind  of  play.' 

"It  was  only  an  episode  in  the  old  river 
life,  and  as  nobody  was  much  hurt  excepting 
professionals,  nobody  thought  much  about 
it." 


"Overland  Jack" 


"Overland  Jack" 

HOW  A    WESTERN   CROOK  HAD  FUN  WITH 
SOME  SHARP  NEW  YORKERS 

"  I  don't  know  how  far  local  pride  may 
color  the  judgment,"  said  the  gray-haired 
young-looking  man,  "  but  I  am  satisfied  that 
very  few  New  Yorkers  would  be  willing  to 
admit  that  an  all-round  sport  could  come 
here  from  the  West  and  clean  up  the  town, 
metaphorically  speaking.  That  is,  tackle 
the  experts  of  the  city  at  their  own  different 
games  and  win  money  from  one  after  an- 
other without  losing  to  any  of  them,  and 
finally  depart  after  a  season  of  riotous  suc- 
cess with  his  pockets  laden  with  spoils. 
Such  a  thing  does  not  seem  likely.  Yet  I 
remember  one  case  in  the  '703  when  just 
that  thing  was  done  by  one  of  the  best- 


152  Queer  Luck 

known  gamblers  in  the  United  States. 
*  Overland  Jack '  was  the  name  by  which  he 
was  usually  called,  but  his  real  name  was 
John  McCormick.  He  cut  a  very  wide 
swath  when  he  first  came  to  New  York,  but 
he  made  a  good  many  friends  here,  too,  not 
only  among  the  sporting  fraternity,  but 
among  actors  and  men-about-town  gener- 
ally. 

"  The  fact  of  his  having  a  goodly  number 
of  friends  was  manifest  when  he  came  to  die 
afterward  in  Chicago.  He  knew,  toward 
the  last,  that  his  death  was  near,  but  in- 
stead of  weakening  he  recalled  the  inci- 
dents of  his  career  with  the  utmost  satisfac- 
tion, and  declared  that  he  had  no  regrets  for 
the  way  he  had  spent  his  life,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  considered  that  he  had  done  ex- 
cellently well  with  it.  As  a  token  of  his 
feelings,  he  expressed  the  wish  that  his 
friends  should  go  to  his  funeral,  not  with 
religious  ceremonies,  but  with  champagne 


"  Overland  Jack"  153 

galore,  and  that  in  place  of  praying  for  his 
future  they  should  drink  to  his  memory  over 
his  open  grave. 

"  It  was  just  such  a  crowd  as  he  would 
have  selected  that  went  to  his  grave  and 
carried  out  his  wishes.  Tony  Pastor,  Jack 
Studley,  Pat  Sheedy,  Johnny  Blaisdell,  Mike 
McDonald,  and  many  others  were  there. 
There  were  enough,  at  all  events,  to  get 
away  with  five  baskets  of  wine  before  the 
grave  was  filled  in,  and  the  empty  bottles 
were  thrown  in  on  the  coffin.  It  was  a 
memorable  occasion,  even  for  Chicago,  and 
it  occurred  only  a  few  years  ago.  It  was  in 
'90  or  '91,  if  I  remember  aright. 

"  The  time  I  speak  of,  however,  was  be- 
fore he  was  known  on  this  side  of  the  con- 
tinent, excepting  by  reputation.  Overland 
Jack,  the  sport,  came  from  San  Francisco. 
Where  John  McCormick,  the  man,  came 
from  originally  no  one  seemed  to  know. 
The  first  that  could  be  definitely  stated  was 


154  Queer  Luck 

that  he  was  a  private  in  a  California  cavalry 
regiment  at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War.  He 
never  rose  from  the  ranks,  but  he  was  always 
well  supplied  with  money,  even  when  on 
duty,  for  he  was  far  and  away  the  best  poker 
player  in  the  regiment.  After  the  war  he 
never  did  anything  but  gamble  for  a  living. 

"  He  was  a  quiet  man,  who  was  so  un- 
communicative about  himself  that  his  best 
friends  could  not  even  say  with  certainty 
whether  he  was  a  well-educated  man  or  not, 
but  he  was  always  smiling  and  extremely 
pleasant  in  his  manner.  It  was  said  of  him 
that  he  was  never  known  to  be  angry,  but  I 
have  heard  this  disputed.  Certainly  he  had 
no  reputation  as  a  fighter,  though  he  took 
his  life  in  his  hands  often  enough  in  his 
play,  for  he  was,  beyond  question,  a  crook, 
which  makes  the  fact  of  his  having  so  many 
friends  all  the  more  remarkable. 

"  He  became  well  known  on  the  Pacific 
coast  soon  after  the  war,  but  it  was  not  un- 


"  Overland  Jack"  155 

til  '73  or  '74  that  he  started  East,  and  then 
he  didn't  come  straight  through,  but  stopped 
at  various  places.  The  first  I  heard  of  him 
was  at  Salt  Lake  City,  where  he  had  a  nota- 
ble adventure.  I  heard  the  story  from  a 
man  who  stood  in  with  him  in  his  faro  game 
and  helped  him  to  get  away  with  consider- 
able Mormon  capital.  He  traveled  with 
a  faro  outfit  and  dealt  a  brace  game  always. 
Of  course  he  had  to  be  skilful  to  do  that, 
but  he  was  particularly  skilful.  When  he 
reached  Salt  Lake  he  put  up  at  the  Town- 
send  House  and  set  up  his  faro  layout  in  his 
room,  running  the  game  quietly  enough  to 
rouse  no  antagonism  on  the  part  of  the  land- 
lord, but  managing,  with  the  aid  of  my  in- 
formant, who  was  an  actor,  then  playing  in 
Brigham  Young's  theatre,  to  rope  in  several 
of  the  wildest  sports  in  the  city. 

"  Among  others,  Brigham  Young's  son, 
John  Young,  was  informed  of  the  chance  to 
play,  and,  being  eager  to  do  so,  was  accom- 


156  Queer  Luck 

modated  to  the  tune  of  seven  hundred  or 
eight  hundred  dollars  the  first  night.  The 
actor  went  with  him  and  played  with  him, 
and  was  a  loser  to  a  less  amount.  He  was 
therefore  in  a  proper  position  to  urge  Young 
to  try  it  the  second  night  that  they  might 
both  get  even.  Overland  Jack,  however,  let 
nobody  get  even  when  he  was  manipulating 
the  box,  and  Young  lost  about  three  thou- 
sand dollars  the  second  night.  He  was  not 
a  good  loser,  as  was  shown  long  afterward 
when  he  came  to  Chicago  and  killed  a  man 
there  in  a  quarrel  in  a  gambling-house — a 
matter,  by  the  way,  for  which  he  was  never 
tried — and  he  was  furious  at  his  losses  this 
time.  Overland  Jack  was  shrewd  enough  to 
foresee  trouble,  and  that  night  he  packed 
his  faro  layout  in  the  trunk  of  his  friend  the 
actor,  and  early  in  the  morning  started  out 
for  a  walk.  The  walk  was  a  long  one,  and 
not  caring  about  walking  back  he  took  a  way 
train  at  the  next  station,  and  after  changing 


"  Overland  Jack"  157 

cars  once  or  twice  was  well  on  his  way  to 
Laramie  before  John  Young  went  back  to 
the  Townsend  House  with  police  force 
enough  to  take  in  four  faro  banks  and  all 
their  attendants. 

"  The  actor  tarried  in  Salt  Lake  for  a  dis- 
creet interval  and  then  went  to  Laramie  him- 
self. For  some  reason  it  was  not  thought 
wise  to  deal  faro  there,  and  they  lay  around 
idle  till  they  got  a  chance  to  play  together 
in  a  pretty  heavy  poker  game  that  was  going 
on.  They  had  not  spoken  to  each  other 
there  till  they  met  at  the  table,  and  sup- 
posed that  no  one  in  the  place  knew  that 
they  were  acquainted,  so  the  chance  seemed 
a  good  one  to  play  in  the  way  they  had  ar- 
ranged, which  was  for  Overland  Jack  to  do 
the  dealing  and  the  other  man  to  hold  the 
cards.  Among  the  other  players  was  a  rich 
plainsman  who  had  come  to  town  for  a 
racket  and  was  having  it  to  his  complete 
satisfaction.  He  was  not  a  particularly 


158  Queer  Luck 

good  player,  and  the  game  looked  like  a 
good  thing. 

"  It  came  Overland  Jack's  deal,  and  his 
confederate  looked  confidently  at  his  cards, 
expecting  to  find  winners,  but,  instead,  he 
found  nothing  at  all.  Overland  Jack  had 
seen  what  he  had  not,  that  the  landlord  of 
the  hotel,  who  was  in  the  room  but  not  in 
the  game,  was  watching  the  actor's  play,  as 
if  he  had  an  inkling  of  the  truth.  Instantly 
changing  his  plan,  he  dealt  himself  the  hand 
he  had  stacked  for  the  actor,  which  was  four 
aces,  while  he  gave  the  plainsman  his  four 
kings  as  he  had  intended. 

"  There  was  the  raise  before  the  draw  and 
after  it,  and  the  pile  on  the  table  grew  rap- 
idly, while  the  other  players  dropped  out, 
and  the  two  hands  were  being  played  for  all 
they  were  worth.  Overland  Jack's  nerve 
was  perfectly  good,  and  he  was  playing  for 
the  other  man's  pile,  when  he  heard  a  click 
under  the  table,  just  as  the  plainsman  had 


"Overland  Jack"  159 

raised  him  five  hundred  dollars.  Without 
an  instant's  hesitation,  and  without  the 
slightest  change  of  expression,  he  ex- 
claimed, '  That's  good,'  and  threw  his  four 
aces  into  the  discard  pile.  Neither  did  he 
show  any  emotion  of  any  kind  as  he  saw  the 
plainsman,  with  a  look  of  considerable  sur- 
prise, rake  in  the  pile.  He  had  cold  feet 
soon  after,  however,  as  did  the  actor  also, 
and  they  left  the  room  and  went  straight  to 
the  bar. 

"  While  they  were  chewing  their  whisky 
the  landlord  and  the  plainsman  came  in  to- 
gether, and  Overland  Jack  instantly  called 
to  them  both  to  come  over  and  have  a  drink. 
They  came,  and  the  plainsman  put  out  his 
hand,  laughing. 

"  '  You  are  a  good  one,'  he  said.  '  What 
did  you  throw  down  four  aces  for  ? ' 

"  '  My  friend,'  said  Overland  Jack,  '  when 
you  have  played  cards  as  much  as  I  have  you 
will  know  that  there  are  times  when  four 


160  Queer  Luck 

aces  are  not  worth  four  cents.  And  when 
you  have  been  through  what  I  have  you  will 
know  that  it  is  damned  foolish  to  pull  the 
second  gun.  When  you  hear  a  click,  and 
your  own  gun  is  not  out,  it  is  time  to  quit 
the  game.' 

"'Well,  you  are  a  good  one,'  said  the 
plainsman  again,  and  they  all  drank. 

"  At  that  time  the  old  Morton  House  was 
the  center  of  a  good  deal  of  the  excitement 
of  various  kinds  that  was  going  on  in  this 
city,  and  it  was  natural  enough  that  Over- 
land Jack  should  put  up  there  when  he  ar- 
rived in  New  York.  He  did  so,  and  looked 
around  quietly  enough  for  a  few  days  with- 
out making  himself  known.  It  was  not  hard 
for  him  to  strike  up  a  hotel  acquaintance 
with  Jim  Morton,  who  was  then  running  the 
house  alone,  after  Ryan's  death,  and  it  was 
not  long  before  Overland  Jack  managed  to 
be  in  the  room  as  a  spectator  when  there 
was  a  tolerably  stiff  game  of  poker  going 


"Overland  Jack"  161 

on.  He  hadn't  been  invited  to  play,  and 
he  was  not  making  proposals.  He  was  sim- 
ply awaiting  his  chance,  and  it  came  sud- 
denly. 

"  Morton  was  in  the  game.  So  was  Shed 
Shook,  and  so  were  the  late  General  Owens, 
Ed  Gilmore,  and  a  Senator  from  Albany 
who  spent  considerable  time  in  the  city. 
They  were  betting  pretty  well  and  playing 
table  stakes.  Morton  was  called  away  by  a 
summons  from  the  office,  and,  not  caring  to 
quit  the  game,  he  looked  around  for  some- 
body to  take  his  hand  while  he  should  go 
downstairs  for  a  few  minutes.  It  happened 
that  he  saw  Overland  Jack  first  among  the 
lookers-on,  and  he  asked  him  if  he  would 
keep  the  seat  warm  for  him. 

"  Naturally  Overland  Jack  didn't  refuse, 
but  as  he  sat  down  he  said :  '  If  you  want 
me  to  play  for  you,  you'd  better  leave  me 
some  more  money,  for  I  shall  play  your 
cards  for  all  they  are  worth.' 
ii 


1 62  Queer  Luck 

"  Morton  had  two  or  three  hundred  on 
the  table  at  the  time,  but  he  didn't  hesitate 
an  instant.  Putting  his  hand  in  his  pocket, 
he  pulled  out  a  roll  and  tossed  it  down  in 
front  of  Overland  Jack,  who  did  not  even 
count  it,  but  nodded  and  shoved  the  money 
all  together  and  waited  for  his  cards.  He 
never  made  any  charge  afterward  that  any- 
body was  trying  to  play  tricks  in  that  game, 
but  he  did  say  that  he  was  satisfied  in  his 
own  mind  that  a  certain  man  in  that  party 
was  likely  to  hold  four  of  a  kind  soon  after 
he  began  playing,  and  as  it  happened  that 
man  did  hold  four  deuces  the  next  time  it 
came  Overland  Jack's  deal.  It  was  a  jack- 
pot, and  the  deuce  man  opened  it  for  fifty 
dollars.  The  others  came  in,  and  Overland 
Jack  raised  it  fifty.  The  deuce  man  raised 
it  fifty  more,  and  all  stayed. 

"  On  the  draw  the  deuce  man  called  for 
one,  the  next  man  stood  pat  on  a  flush,  the 
next  drew  two  cards  and  didn't  fill,  the  next 


"  Overland  Jack"  163 

drew  to  two  pairs  and  didn't  better,  and  the 
dealer  took  three.  The  opener  proceeded 
to  make  merry  at  his  expense.  '  You  raised 
it  on  a  pair,  eh  ! '  he  exclaimed.  '  Well, 
you  have  a  nerve,  to  be  sure.  Do  they  play 
that  kind  of  poker  where  you  came  from  ? 
If  they  do  you  have  come  to  a  good  place  to 
learn  the  game.  Why,  I  have  you  beaten 
without  a  struggj^. '  And  he  shoved  one 
hundred  dollars  into  the  pot. 

"  '  Yes/  said  Overland  Jack,  coolly.  '  I 
raised  it  on  a  pair  of  queens,'  and  he  turned 
them  over,  while  he  let  the  three  he  had 
drawn  lie  where  they  had  fallen,  without 
looking  at  them  himself.  *  A  pair  of  queens 
is  a  good  hand  to  draw  to,'  he  continued, 
speaking  with  calm  indifference  to  the  open 
amusement  of  all  the  others.  '  There  are 
more  queens  in  the  pack,  I  suppose,  and  I 
may  get  some  of  them.' 

"  '  Yes,  you  may,'  said  the  opener,  with  a 
sneer.  '  You  may  get  struck  by  lightning, 


164  Queer  Luck 

but  I'm  not  looking  for  it  to  happen  this 
evening.' 

"  The  flush  man  stayed,  and  the  next  two 
dropped  out.  Then  Overland  Jack  saw  the 
hundred  and  raised  it  a  hundred,  still  with- 
out looking  at  his  cards. 

"  The  opener  skinned  through  his  hand  to 
make  sure  that  he  still  had  all  his  deuces, 
and  then  said  with  paternal  severity : 
'  Young  man,  I'm  sorry  for  you,  but  you  cer- 
tainly ought  to  be  taught  something  of  the 
rudiments  of  this  game.  If  you  are  deter- 
mined to  bet,  I'll  give  you  a  chance.  I'll 
see  your  hundred  and  raise  you  two  hundred 
and  fifty.' 

"  It  was  too  rich  for  the  man  with  a  flush, 
and  he  threw  down  his  cards.  Then  it  was 
Overland  Jack's  turn.  He  pretended  to  be 
greatly  provoked,  and  said  hotly :  '  I  may 
be  a  younger  man  than  you  are,  sir,  but 
where  I  came  from  we  call  two  queens,  with 
a  chance  for  two  more,  good  for  a  small 


"  Overland  Jack"  165 

bet,  anyhow.  So  I'll  just  cover  your  two- 
fifty  and  bet  you  the  balance  of  the  pile.' 
And  he  shoved  the  whole  of  Morton's 
money  to  the  center  of  the  table,  still  with- 
out counting  it. 

"  The  others  were  astounded,  but  he  had 
made  the  play  and  there  was  only  the 
opener  to  talk.  He  counted  the  money. 
It  was  eleven  hundred  and  odd  dollars. 
Then  he  counted  his  own.  He  had  only 
five  hundred  with  him,  and  he  began  to 
sputter. 

"  '  If  you'll  take  a  check,'  he  began,  but 
Overland  Jack  stopped  him. 

"  '  No  checks,'  he  said  excitedly.  '  This 
is  table  stakes.' 

'"Well,  if  you'll  wait  till  I  go  down- 
stairs and ' 

"  '  Oh,  yes,'  sneered  Overland  Jack. 
'  Go  out  of  the  room  and  gather  up  four  of 
a  kind,  I  suppose. ' 

"  And  there  was  more  talk  that  resulted 


1 66  Queer  Luck 

in  the  opener  getting  angry  for  fair  and 
calling  the  bet  for  the  amount  of  his  pile. 
He  slammed  down  his  four  deuces  as  he  did 
so  and  exclaimed  :  '  There  !  Is  that  good, 
or  do  you  think  you  have  drawn  the  other 
two  queens  ? ' 

"'Well,  I  don't  know,'  drawled  Over- 
land Jack.  *  Maybe  I  have.  Let's  see,' 
and  he  turned  over  two  queens  and  an  ace. 

"  Everybody  else  in  the  room  saw  the 
point,  but  the  opener  was  furious.  '  They're 
not  good,'  he  shouted.  '  You  never  got  that 
hand  honestly.' 

"  '  Oh,  yes,  they're  good,'  said  Overland 
Jack,  with  still  more  of  a  drawl.  '  Four  of 
a  kind  is  good — when  you  get  'em  out  of  the 
pack. ' 

"  There  was  a  shout  of  laughter  as  the 
opener  grew  purple  with  rage,  and  Overland 
Jack  raked  in  the  pot. 

"  That  was  only  one  of  his  adventures  in 
this  city.  He  had  a  number,  and  naturally 


"  Overland  Jack  "  167 

made  a  good  many  enemies,  but,  as  in  this 
case,  he  made  more  friends  than  foes,  so 
that  he  was  really  a  popular  man  despite 
the  fact  that  he  was  known  to  be  a  sharper. 
"  Crooked  poker  and  brace  faro  were  his 
favorite  games,  but  he  was  also  a  billiard 
sharp,  who  gave  pointers  as  well  as  points 
to  the  many  others  of  that  ilk  who  made  a 
living  around  the  billiard  saloons  in  those 
days.  One  of  the  first  places  where  he  dis- 
tinguished himself  was  in  Chris  Conner's 
place  in  Fourteenth  Street,  where  there  were 
always  gentlemen  of  leisure  ready  to  play 
almost  anybody  for  a  small  bet  or  a  large 
one,  provided  they  could  settle  the  odds. 
Overland  Jack  always  had  confederates  in 
the  room  ready  to  make  side  bets  while  he 
was  playing,  and  he  was  pretty  sure  to  get 
one  or  two  himself  in  addition  to  the  nom- 
inal stakes  of  the  game.  There  was  one 
young  fellow  who  played  in  Conner's  place 
a  great  deal  who  really  played  a  marvelous 


1 68  Queer  Luck 

game,  and  was  as  steady  as  a  rock.  Conner 
thought  he  couldn't  be  beaten  if  the  odds 
were  fixed  anywhere  near  right,  so  Overland 
Jack  studied  his  play  for  a  couple  of  nights 
and  then  sailed  in  himself. 

"  He  acted  the  usual  part  of  a  fairly  skil- 
ful amateur  excited  with  the  game  and  anx- 
ious to  display  his  skill  and  win  or  lose  his 
money,  and  managed,  without  trouble,  to 
get  himself  picked  up  as  a  sucker  by  this 
particular  fellow.  Conner  himself  settled 
the  odds  after  seeing  the  stranger  play,  and 
bet  considerable  money  himself  on  the  out- 
side, but  Overland  Jack  won,  hands  down. 

"  In  fact,  he  won  at  everything  he  touched 
while  he  was  here,  but  as  a  matter  of  course 
he  soon  became  known,  as  a  first-class  crook 
is  sure  to,  and  he  was  obliged  after  a  while  to 
seek  new  pastures.  So  it  came  that  the  man 
who  came  and  had  fun  with  the  New  York 
sports  for  a  season  drifted  away  again  with- 
out exciting  any  regrets  by  his  departure." 


His  Last  Sunday  Game 


His  Last  Sunday  Game 

HE   WAS  BETTING  ON  A   JACK- POT  WHEN 
THE   YACHT  UPSET 

"The  closest  call  I  ever  had,"  said  the 
gray-haired  young-looking  man,  "  was  in  a 
game  of  poker,  and,  curiously  enough,  no- 
body called  in  that  particular  deal  in  which 
it  occurred.  In  fact,  nobody  thought  about 
it  after  the  interruption  until  it  was  too  late 
for  a  showdown  and  the  chips  had  all  dis- 
appeared, nobody  knew  where.  It  takes  a 
pretty  serious  happening  to  destroy  all  in- 
terest in  a  game  of  poker  just  at  the  mo- 
ment when  somebody  has  raised  the  limit  in 
a  big  jack-pot  and  each  player  is  confident 
of  winning.  But  this  was  a  serious  happen- 
ing. It  was  about  the  most  serious  that  I 
ever  knew,  and  came  near  being  a  tragedy. 


172  Queer  Luck 

"  Perhaps  you  remember  one  summer 
about  ten  years  ago  when  a  succession  of 
tremendous  squalls  struck  the  south  side 
of  Long  Island  on  four  successive  Sundays. 
I  think  it  was  just  ten  years  ago. 

"  We  had  a  club-house,  eight  or  ten  of  us, 
that  summer,  which  was  located  on  Hicks 's 
Beach,  on  the  extreme  western  end  of  the 
Great  South  Bay,  not  far  from  the  Long 
Beach  Hotel.  It  was  about  as  unpreten- 
tious as  any  club-house  need  be,  being  only 
a  shanty,  but  it  was  weather-proof,  and  with 
cots  and  hammocks  we  made  ourselves  thor- 
oughly comfortable  when  we  slept  ashore. 
More  often  we  would  sleep  on  board  the  lit- 
tle sloop  yacht  that  we  had  chartered  for  the 
summer,  for  we  used  to  cruise  through  the 
entire  day,  using  the  club-house  as  a  rendez- 
vous. It  was  one  of  the  jolliest  and  most 
economical  seasons  I  ever  enjoyed. 

"  We  all  knew  something  about  sailing — 
I  least  of  all — but  the  Commodore,  as  we 


His  Last  Sunday  Game          173 

all  called  him,  was  the  best  amateur  sailor 
I  ever  knew,  so,  naturally,  we  made  him 
skipper,  and  nobody  else  assumed  or  felt 
any  responsibility  when  he  was  aboard. 

"  On  this  particular  Sunday,  the  fourth 
in  the  series  of  squally  Sundays,  there  were 
seven  of  us  on  the  yacht.  We  had  been 
weakfishing  all  the  forenoon  about  four 
miles  east  of  Wreck  Lead,  and  had  had  fair 
luck,  but  it  was  wretchedly  hot,  and,  tiring 
of  the  sport,  we  had  run  back  nearly  to 
Hicks's  Beach  again  and  come  to  anchor 
off  the  best  bathing-ground  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, opposite  the  life-saving  station. 
Then  we  had  a  plunge,  and  after  dressing 
had  gone  into  the  cabin.  Two  of  the  men 
had  gone  to  sleep  and  the  rest  of  us  had  be- 
gun a  game  of  poker.  It  was  the  last  game 
I  ever  played  on  Sunday.  The  Commodore 
had  made  all  snug  above,  and  had  come 
down  into  the  cabin  last  of  all,  satisfied 
that  everything  was  right,  as  we  were  not 


174  Queer  Luck 

in  the  channel,  and  no  big  boats  navigate 
thereabout  anyhow.  He  was  good  enough 
sailor,  however,  to  leave  the  game  occa- 
sionally for  a  moment  or  two,  just  to  take 
a  look  around.  But  not  even  he  thought  it 
worth  while  to  keep  a  lookout  all  the  time, 
for  he  thought  we  were  as  safe  as  we  would 
have  been  in  a  brick  house. 

"  After  an  hour  or  so  there  came  a  jack- 
pot, in  which  there  was  some  of  the  most  re- 
markable drawing  I  ever  saw.  The  Broker 
had  opened  it  on  a  pair  of  queens.  The 
Commodore  sat  next,  and,  having  a  pair  of 
sevens,  came  in.  The  Doctor  had  three 
spades  with  a  queen  at  the  head,  and,  being 
a  brash  player  at  all  times,  pushed  in  his 
chips.  I  had  been  having  great  luck  for  a 
time,  and  decided  to  rely  on  it,  so  I  came 
in  with  an  ace.  And  the  Lawyer  came  also, 
though  he  had  only  two  little  four-spots  in 
his  hand.  We  found  out  all  this  long  after- 
ward when  we  were  together  one  night  talk- 


His  Last  Sunday  Game          175 

ing  over  the  adventure,  and  at  the  same  time 
we  learned  what  the  draw  was.  It  seemed 
so  curious  to  me  that  I  wrote  it  down,  so  I 
speak  by  the  card  in  telling  it.  The  Doc- 
tor was  dealing,  so  I  drew  the  first  cards. 
They  were  another  ace  and  three  eight  spots. 
The  Lawyer  caught  another  four  and  two 
tens.  The  Broker  got  three  jacks.  The 
Commodore  caught  a  seven  and  two  nines, 
and  the  Doctor  got  his  two  coveted  spades. 
A  pair  of  queens  was  high  hand  before  the 
draw,  and  there  were  four  fulls  and  a  flush 
around  the  board  after  it.  Such  a  thing 
may  have  happened  often,  but  I  never  hap- 
pened to  hear  of  it  as  happening  on  any 
other  occasion  but  this. 

"  Naturally  enough,  the  betting  began 
furiously,  and  the  chips  on  the  table  were 
all  in  the  pot  presently.  We  were  betting 
money  and  were,  some  of  us,  feeling  through 
our  pockets  for  our  rolls,  when  suddenly  the 
Commodore  threw  back  his  head  and  raised 


176  Queer  Luck 

his  hand  with  a  sudden  gesture  that  arrested 
our  attention  instantly.  Dropping  his 
cards,  he  sprang  to  his  feet  and  started  to 
rush  out  on  deck,  when  a  lurch  of  the  ves- 
sel sent  us  all  sprawling.  The  squall  had 
struck  us.  For  a  moment,  while  we  were 
scrambling  up,  we  could  feel  the  yacht  tug- 
ging at  her  anchor,  and  then  with  a  sudden 
drive  dash  onward  somewhere.  Whither  we 
could  not  even  guess,  being  all  below,  but 
we  afterward  found  that  it  was  toward  the 
northeast,  the  squall  coming  from  the  south- 
west. Almost  at  the  moment  of  the  snap- 
ping of  the  cable,  for  it  had  snapped,  we 
heard  a  tremendous  crash  overhead,  and  we 
afterward  learned  that  the  lurch  of  the  boat 
had  thrown  her  stick  out  of  her. 

"  The  sudden  drive  meant  that  we  were 
drifting  helplessly  toward  the  mud  flats  on 
the  other  side  of  the  channel ;  but  before 
we  could  ascertain  this — in  fact,  before  any 
of  us  could  get  to  the  companion-way — the 


His  Last  Sunday  Game          177 

wretched  boat  turned  turtle.  I  have  heard 
it  denied  that  such  a  boat  could  turn  turtle 
under  such  circumstances,  and  I  don't  pre- 
tend to  explain  how  or  why  it  did.  All  I 
know  is  that  it  did,  and  it  looked  as  if  we 
had  reached  our  last  quarter  of  an  hour. 

"  The  confusion  was  indescribable.  Of 
course  we  were  immediately  standing  or 
scrambling  on  the  ceiling  of  the  little 
cabin,  while  everything  that  had  been  on 
the  floor  fell  with  us.  The  water  rushed  in 
more  than  waist  deep,  and  for  a  few  mo- 
ments it  looked  as  if  the  little  room  would 
fill  up  completely  before  we  could  even 
think  what  possibility  there  was  of  getting 
out.  Fortunately,  however,  there  was  buoy- 
ancy enough  about  the  miserable  craft,  and 
the  cabin  was  deep  enough  in  the  hull,  to 
keep  it  pretty  near  the  water  level,  and  the 
air  in  the  room  was  not  immediately  dis- 
placed. At  least  that  was  how  I  reasoned  it 

out.     All  that  I  can  say  positively  is  that 
12 


i/8  Queer  Luck 

whereas  I  expected  to  be  totally  submerged 
I  found  that  I  could  easily  enough  keep  my 
head  out  of  water.  What  air  there  was  in 
the  cabin  doubtless  helped  to  keep  us  afloat, 
confined  as  it  was,  and  for  a  time — it  seemed 
a  very  long  time — we  were  tossed  about, 
splashed,  and  thrown  down,  as  the  boat 
rocked  and  pitched,  but  we  were  not 
drowned. 

"  At  first  no  one  spoke.  The  situation 
was  too  awful  for  words,  and  it  seemed  as  if 
we  were  all  so  shocked  as  to  be  mentally 
stunned.  I  know  I  was  for  one,  and  if  our 
escape  had  depended  on  my  thinking  of  a 
means  we  would  all  have  perished  then  and 
there.  Fortunately  the  Commodore  grasped 
the  situation,  and,  as  we  could  talk  and  un- 
derstand one  another  well  enough,  he  told 
us  his  plan  in  a  few  words.  It  was  simple, 
and  it  gave  us  at  least  a  chance  for  life. 
Moreover,  it  appeared  to  be  our  only 
chance. 


His  Last  Sunday  Game          179 


can  all  swim/  he  said.  'Find 
a  fishing-line.  There  are  plenty  in  the 
cabin.  ' 

"  Somebody  produced  one  in  a  moment. 
It  was  on  a  reel. 

"  '  Hold  fast  to  the  reel,'  said  the  Com- 
modore. '  I'll  take  one  end  of  the  line  and 
dive  through  the  companion-way.  I  think 
I  can  find  my  way  over  the  side  and  up  on 
the  bottom  of  the  boat.  I'll  hold  my  end, 
and  when  you  feel  three  jerks  make  this  end 
fast.  Then  you  will  have  to  follow,  one  at 
a  time.  Don't  let  go  of  the  line  as  you  go 
out,  and  you  can't  miss  the  way.  I'll  hold 
the  other  end.  ' 

"'Very  good,  Commodore,'  said  the 
Broker,  '  but  I'd  better  go  first.  You  know 
what  a  swimmer  I  am,  and  I  reckon  the  man 
who  goes  first  will  have  the  hardest  job.' 

"  The  Commodore  was  disposed  to  dis- 
pute this  proposition,  but  the  Lawyer  spoke 
up  sharply:  '  Let  him  go,  Commodore,'  he 


180  Queer  Luck 

said.  '  It's  a  forlorn  hope  at  best,  and  he's 
far  and  away  the  best  swimmer.'  So  it  was 
settled,  and  in  another  moment  the  Broker 
had  disappeared. 

"  Well,  that's  all  the  story.  The  plan 
worked  and  we  were  all  perched  on  the  keel 
inside  of  ten  minutes.  There  we  were  seen 
by  the  life-saving  patrol,  and  were  all  taken 
off  safely  soon  after.  I  can't  say  I  ever  en- 
joyed yachting  after  that  day,  and,  as  I  said, 
I  never  played  poker  on  Sunday  again." 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game 

ONE   OF   THE  DUTIES  OF  AN  OLD-TIME   MIS- 
SISSIPPI RIVER  PACKET  CAPTAIN 

"  I  have  always  been  a  little  hazy  in  my 
notion  of  what  are  the  proper  functions  of 
the  Captain  of  a  Mississippi  River  steam- 
boat," said  the  gray-haired  young-looking 
man.  "  I  suppose,  really,  that  nothing 
would  have  been  easier  than  for  me  to  find 
out,  for  I  traveled  a  great  deal  on  the  river 
some  years  ago,  and  I  knew  a  lot  of  people 
who  were  engaged  in  steamboating  as  a 
business,  besides  enjoying  a  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  several  of  the  Captains 
themselves.  But  there  are  some  things  that 
I  do  not  like  to  know  definitely,  and  this 
is  one  of  them.  It  is  more  interesting  to 
speculate  about  them  in  idle  moments  and 


184  Queer  Luck 

to  think  of  all  sorts  of  whimsicalities  as 
possible  than  to  get  at  the  facts,  which 
would  not  be  interesting  at  all. 

"  Now,  on  the  lakes,  and  on  such  salt- 
water craft  as  I  have  traveled  on,  the  Cap- 
tain of  the  boat  is  very  much  in  evidence. 
He  has  all  to  say  about  everything,  and 
seems  to  be  a  sort  of  court  of  appeals  for 
the  trial  and  final  disposition  of  all  cases, 
trivial  or  important.  He  seems  to  have  a 
personal  supervision  over  every  detail  of  his 
business,  and  to  have  very  little  real  lei- 
sure. It  may  be,  of  course,  that  the  Cap- 
tain of  a  Mississippi  boat  has  similar  duties 
and  responsibilities,  but  it  doesn't  seem  so 
to  the  average  passenger. 

"  In  the  first  place,  he  seems  to  have 
nothing  to  say  about  the  navigation  of  his 
boat.  The  pilot  attends  to  that,  appar- 
ently, all  the  time.  Then  the  Captain  has 
little  to  say  to  the  crew.  The  mate  bosses 
the  deckhands  and  the  roustabouts,  and  the 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game          185 

engineer  has  control  of  his  own  department. 
I  suppose  the  Captain  gives  them  both  or- 
ders, though  I  never  saw  or  heard  him  do  it. 
I  have  heard  him  order  the  waiters  about  in 
the  dining-room,  but  it  seems  ridiculous  to 
class  that  among  his  duties.  Altogether,  to 
one  who  doesn't  understand  the  matter,  the 
Captain's  office  seems  suited  to  comic  opera 
rather  than  to  navigation,  and,  as  I  inti- 
mated, I  enjoy  comic  opera  too  much  to 
want  to  understand  this. 

"  There  is  one  thing  about  the  position, 
however,  which  is  no  joke.  The  Captain 
has  arbitrary  police  power  over  everybody 
on  board  his  boat,  unless,  indeed,  the  pilot 
is  exempt.  I  don't  know  about  that.  So 
well  is  this  fact  understood  that  I  never  saw 
this  authority  disputed  but  once,  and  on 
that  occasion  it  was  not  well  for  the  man 
who  did  the  disputing. 

"  Captain  Foss  of  the  river  packet  Lone 
Star,  plying  between  St.  Louis  and  New  Or- 


1 86  Queer  Luck 

leans  some  twenty  years  ago,  was  one  of  the 
finest  men  I  ever  chanced  to  know  on  the 
river.  That  he  was  a  Southerner  no  one 
could  doubt  who  saw  him  and  heard  him 
talk,  but  I  never  knew  what  State  he  came 
from.  He  was  a  man  of  middle  stature  and 
remarkable  physical  development,  strong  as 
a  horse  and  active  as  a  cat.  I  think  he  had 
been  in  the  army,  for  he  had  a  military 
bearing,  but  his  title  of  Captain  came,  of 
course,  from  his  position.  He  was  some- 
what of  a  dandy,  and  dressed  in  what  was 
old  style  even  then,  but  the  exquisite  neat- 
ness and  fine  material  of  his  clothing  made 
him  conspicuous  even  among  the  wealthy 
and  well-dressed  passengers  who  patronized 
his  boat  from  choice  whenever  they  trav- 
eled the  river. 

"  Suave,  polished,  and  extremely  quiet  in 
his  manners  on  ordinary  occasion,  he  could 
blaze  out  in  the  most  fiery  bursts  of  temper 
when  he  had  provocation.  I  never  saw  him 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game         187 

in  a  temper  but  twice,  and  curiously  enough 
the  trouble  grew  out  of  a  game  of  poker 
each  time. 

"  Poker  was  always  played  in  the  main 
saloon  of  the  boat  at  night,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  I  have  seen  some  stiff  games 
played  on  the  Lone  Star,  for  I  made  several 
trips  on  her.  I  didn't  hesitate  to  play  there 
myself,  even  with  strangers,  for  I  knew  the 
reputation  of  the  boat  and  of  the  Captain, 
who  played  himself  occasionally,  though  not 
very  often.  He  was  called  one  of  the  best 
players  on  the  river,  and  was  known  to  be 
thoroughly  upright  and  believed  to  be  ut- 
terly devoid  of  fear.  He  knew  all  the  gam- 
blers who  traveled  the  river,  and  would  not 
allow  any  crooked  play  in  his  jurisdiction. 
It  was  reported  that  they  all  knew  this  and 
had  a  wholesome  respect  for  his  authority, 
knowing  that  he  made  it  a  rule  to  set  a  man 
ashore  in  the  wilderness  if  he  was  detected 
in  any  underhand  work.  He  had  done  this 


1 88  Queer  Luck 

several  times,  and  it  was  generally  believed 
that  there  wasn't  a  gambler  in  the  country 
who  would  play  any  tricks  on  Captain  Foss's 
boat. 

"  One  night,  an  hour  or  two  after  we  had 
left  Memphis  on  the  way  down  the  river, 
the  Captain  sauntered  into  the  saloon  look- 
ing as  if  he  hadn't  a  care  or  a  responsibility 
of  any  kind,  and,  seeing  a  game  of  cards 
going  on,  he  walked  up  to  the  table  and 
joined  the  lookers-on,  of  whom  I  was  one. 
It  was  a  fairly  stiff  game,  and  there  was 
enough  money  changing  hands  to  make  it 
rather  exciting,  even  for  those  who  weren't 
playing.  As  for  the  four  men  who  were  play- 
ing, they  seemed  almost  dead  to  the  outside 
world.  Whether  they  were  playing  beyond 
their  means,  or  whether  it  was  simply  the  ex- 
citement of  the  game  that  held  them  spell- 
bound, I  didn't  know,  but  I  had  watched 
them  for  an  hour  and  hadn't  heard  one  of 
them  utter  a  word  beyond  what  the  game 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game         189 

called  for.  Their  faces  all  showed  intense 
emotion,  and  one  man's  hand  shook  so  that 
he  had  hard  work  to  deal.  It  may  not  have 
been  the  game  that  caused  it,  but  I  thought 
it  was. 

"  After  Captain  Foss  had  been  standing 
by  for  a  few  minutes,  one  of  the  four,  a 
pale,  intellectual-looking  man,  threw  down 
a  losing  hand  with  some  show  of  temper, 
and  exclaimed  with  an  oath,  '  not  loud,  but 
deep '  :  '  I  never  did  have  any  luck  in  a 
four-handed  game.'  And  looking  around 
the  little  group — there  were  a  dozen  or 
more  of  us — he  spied  the  Captain. 

"  '  Captain,'  he  said,  '  won't  you  take  a 
hand  ? ' 

"'Well,'  said  Captain  Foss,  'I  don't 
mind  playing  a  little  while  if  none  of  the 
other  gentlemen  object.  I  didn't  know  you 
were  superstitious,  though,  Dr.  Baisley.' 

"  The  doctor  frowned.  '  I  guess  every- 
body is  who  plays  cards,'  he  replied  shortly. 


190  Queer  Luck 

"'Possibly,'  said  Captain  Foss;  and  as 
the  other  three  signified  a  welcome  to  him, 
he  drew  up  a  chair  and  bought  some  chips. 

"  It  was  a  curious  thing,  and  to  Dr.  Bais- 
ley  it  was,  no  doubt,  '  confirmation  strong 
as  proofs  of  Holy  Writ '  of  his  superstition, 
but  it  is  a  fact  that  his  luck  turned  from  the 
moment  Captain  Foss  entered  the  game. 
He  had  been  a  heavy  loser  before.  I  could 
count  up  over  a  thousand  dollars  in  chips 
that  I  had  seen  him  lose,  and  I  hadn't  seen 
all  the  play.  But  the  turn  set  the  chips 
rolling  back  to  him  so  fast  that  he  was  soon 
even  and  then  winner  to  a  considerable 
amount. 

"  Of  the  others,  one  was  evidently  a  com- 
mercial traveler  who  had  got  into  a  heavier 
game  than  knights  of  the  road  often  indulge 
in.  Somehow,  he  did  not  seem  like  a  gen- 
tleman, and  I  was  not  greatly  surprised 
when  he  lost  his  temper,  for  his  luck  had 
changed  also.  He  had  been  the  largest 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game         191 

winner  at  first,  for  the  other  two  won  and 
lost  in  turn,  so  that  they  were  not  far  from 
even.  But  as  the  doctor  won,  he  lost,  un- 
til at  length  he  pulled  out  what  seemed  to 
be  his  last  hundred-dollar  bill  and  bought 
another  stack  of  chips. 

"  These,  too,  he  was  losing  when  the  doc- 
tor beat  his  flush  with  a  full.  Throwing 
down  his  cards,  he  said,  with  a  nasty  sneer : 
'  It's  evident  that  you  knew  who  to  invite 
into  the  game.' 

"  There  was  a  hush  for  a  moment.  Every- 
body seemed  to  be  holding  his  breath.  We 
all  looked  at  Captain  Foss,  and  I  don't 
think  anybody  would  have  been  surprised  to 
see  him  draw  a  weapon.  The  insult  was  a 
frightful  one,  and,  as  I  said,  the  Captain 
could  blaze  on  occasions. 

"  He  blazed  this  time.  There  was  no 
motion  toward  physical  violence,  but  he 
glared  at  the  fellow  as  an  angry  tiger  might 
have  glared,  and  the  veins  stood  out  in  un- 


192  Queer  Luck 

even  knots  on  his  forehead,  and  his  clenched 
fists  quivered  in  the  struggle  for  self-control. 
At  first  he  could  not  speak  for  rage,  but 
presently  he  swallowed  spasmodically  twice, 
and  then  broke  forth. 

"  '  If  I  could  lower  myself  and  forget  my 
place  so  far  as  to  meet  such  a  vile  whelp  of 
a  hell-hound  as  you  on  common  ground,  I'd 
cut  your  ears  off  and  make  you  eat  them 
along  with  your  words.  As  it  is,  damn 
you — '  And  then  he  went  on  with  such  a 
torrent  of  profane  abuse  as  I  for  one  never 
heard  before  or  since.  The  wretch  actually 
cowered  under  it  like  a  whipped  dog.  He 
tried  to  speak  once  or  twice,  but  he  might 
as  well  have  tried  to  whistle  down  a  whirl- 
wind, and  presently  realizing  his  miserable 
impotence,  he  shoved  the  balance  of  his 
chips  over  to  the  banker,  who  cashed  them, 
and  slunk  away  to  his  stateroom. 

"  Captain  Foss  sat  talking,  or  raving, 
whichever  it  was,  till  the  fellow's  door 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game         193 

closed.  Then  he  stopped,  and  we  could 
see  that  he  was  again  struggling  to  control 
himself.  There  was  another  hush,  which 
was  presently  broken  by  a  young  fellow  less 
than  twenty  years  old,  who  had  been  listen- 
ing open-mouthed. 

"  '  My  ! '  he  exclaimed.  l  But  that  was 
fine.' 

"  This  brought  a  general  burst  of  laugh- 
ter, in  which  the  Captain  himself  joined 
after  a  few  moments,  and  the  strain  was 
over.  But  I  don't  think  there  was  a  man 
there  who  would  not  rather  have  been  shot 
at  than  to  have  had  such  a  tongue-lashing. 

"  The  fact  of  the  Captain  of  a  passenger 
boat  playing  poker  in  the  cabin  when  ac- 
tually in  command  of  her,  and  in  active 
service,  was,  I  think,  what  set  me  thinking, 
as  I  said,  about  his  duties  and  responsibili- 
ties. It  seemed  a  strange  thing  to  me 
then,  because  it  was  the  first  time  I  ever 
saw  it.  But,  though  the  strangeness  wore 
13 


194  Queer  Luck 

off  afterward  when  I  saw  other  Captains 
doing  the  same  thing,  I  never  saw  Foss  play 
again,  though  I  believe  he  occasionally  did 
so. 

"  I  noticed,  however,  every  time  I  trav- 
eled with  him  after  that,  that  he  always 
came  into  the  saloon  in  the  evening  and 
looked  at  the  play  that  was  going  on.  And 
on  one  occasion  I  got  an  inkling  of  his  rea- 
sons for  doing  this.  It  was  a  part  of  his 
regular  patrol  of  the  boat,  and  he  was  as 
particular  to  see  that  nothing  was  going 
wrong  at  the  card  table  as  he  was  to  see 
that  everything  was  right  elsewhere  on  the 
boat.  Of  course,  poker  itself  was  not  con- 
sidered wrong.  It  was  part  of  the  regular 
routine  of  life.  A  man  could  play  or  not, 
but  a  man  who  would  object  to  anybody 
else  playing  would  have  been  as  lonesome 
as  a  prohibitionist  in  Kentucky. 

"Drinking  was  common  on  the  river 
boats.  Drunkenness  was  rare.  If  there 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game         195 

were  ladies  among  the  passengers,  as  com- 
monly there  were,  drinks  were  seldom 
served  in  the  main  saloon  till  after  they 
had  retired.  Then,  if  a  man  wanted  a 
drink  while  he  was  playing,  one  of  the 
darkies  would  bring  it  to  him. 

"  On  the  particular  occasion  that  I  speak 
of  a  man  not  over  twenty-two  or  twenty- 
three  years  old  was  playing  cards  at  a  table 
with  four  older  men.  He  was  a  bright, 
handsome  fellow,  with  manly  ways  and  a 
pleasant  manner,  who  seemed  well  able  to 
take  care  of  himself  even  at  poker,  and 
who,  indeed,  held  his  own  fairly  well  in  the 
first  part  of  the  game.  The  play  went  on, 
however,  far  into  the  night,  and  a  number 
of  drinks  were  brought  to  the  table,  so  that 
after  a  time  the  youngster  grew  flushed  and 
began  playing  wild. 

"  Captain  Foss  noticed  this,  as  he  no- 
ticed everything,  but  did  not  at  once  inter- 
fere. I  observed,  however,  that  he  passed 


196  Queer  Luck 

in  and  out  several  times  between  the  saloon 
and  the  deck,  and  just  as  I  had  seen  a  par- 
ticularly foolish  play  made  by  the  youngster 
I  heard  the  Captain  say  quietly :  '  Gentle- 
men, the  game  will  have  to  be  closed  for 
to-night.' 

"  Naturally  the  players  all  looked  up  in 
surprise,  and  one  or  two  attempted  a  re- 
monstrance, but,  noticing  the  Captain's  ex- 
pression, thought  better  of  it.  He  was 
smiling  pleasantly,  but  you  could  tell  by 
his  face  that  he  was  in  earnest. 

"  The  youngster  himself  was  vehement 
and  vociferous,  but  the  Captain  only  smiled 
at  him  still  more  pleasantly,  and  said  again 
that  the  game  must  be  closed  for  the  night. 
It  was  easy  enough  to  manage  such  a  case  as 
his,  but  after  the  young  fellow  had  pleaded 
and  sputtered  and  even  tried  feebly  to  blus- 
ter without  any  success,  another  man,  much 
older,  of  dark  visage  and  thin,  sharp  fea- 
tures, spoke  up  in  ugly  fashion : 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game         197 

"  '  I  call  it  a  piece  of  impertinence  and 
a  gross  assumption  of  authority  for  the  Cap- 
tain of  a  steamboat  or  anybody  else  to  un- 
dertake to  stop  a  party  of  gentlemen  playing 
a  friendly  game.' 

"  A  quick  change  came  over  the  Cap- 
tain's face.  The  smile  was  gone,  and  the 
eyes  contracted  a  little  as  they  seemed  to 
shoot  fire,  so  keen  and  brilliant  was  the 
look  in  them : 

"  l  It  is  not  necessary,  Major,  to  consider 
what  I  might  or  might  not  do  in  case  a 
party  of  gentlemen  were  playing  a  friendly 
game  of  poker  here.  The  point  is  that  this 
game  is  going  to  stop  now.  Gentlemen 
don't  ply  boys  with  liquor  and  then  win 
money  from  them,  and,  by  the  Almighty, 
nobody  else  is  going  to  do  it  on  my  boat.' 

"  The  Major  was  as  angry  now  as  the  Cap- 
tain. He  glanced  at  the  other  players,  but 
they  all  had  sufficient. grace  to  be  ashamed, 
or,  at  least,  to  appear  so,  and  with  a  con- 


198  Queer  Luck 

temptuous  smile,  he  said :  'I  understand 
you  perfectly,  Captain,  and  I  suppose  you 
will  give  me  satisfaction.  Nobody  else 
seems  inclined  to  demand  it,  but  I  am  not 
in  the  habit  of  allowing  anybody  to  lie 
about  me  without  calling  him  to  account.' 

"  No  law  on  earth  could  have  prevented 
those  two  men  from  fighting  after  that,  and 
there  was  nobody  present  to  put  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  law  in  operation,  even  if  it 
had  been  of  any  avail.  The  Captain  bowed. 
'  I  will  make  a  landing  on  the  Arkansas  side 
in  twenty  minutes,'  he  said,  'and  we  can 
step  ashore  alone,  unless  you  prefer  to  take 
a  friend  with  you.' 

"  '  No,'  said  the  Major,  '  I  would  rather 
prefer  going  alone.' 

"  The  two  saluted  and  the  Captain  strode 
out  of  the  cabin.  The  Major,  without 
deigning  a  look  or  a  word  to  any  of  us, 
walked  over  to  his  stateroom,  entered  it, 
and  closed  the  door. 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game         199 

"  There  was  a  good  deal  of  quiet  conver- 
sation going  on  for  a  little  while,  but  no- 
body seemed  to  feel  called  on — I  know  I 
did  not — to  interfere,  and  there  was  consid- 
erable speculation  as  to  which  would  kill 
the  other.  That  one  of  them  would  be 
killed  seemed  certain,  and  it  was  my  own 
notion  that  the  Major  would  be  the  one. 
It  was  true  that  I  did  not  know  him,  but  I 
did  know  Captain  Foss. 

"  I  was  right.  When  the  boat  slackened 
speed  and  then  slid  her  nose  into  the  mud, 
stopping  with  that  queer,  slow  suddenness 
with  which  a  boat  does  stop  on  a  bank,  we 
all  went  outside  to  see  the  two  men  off.  I 
was  surprised  to  see  that  it  was  daylight,  for 
I  had  not  thought  it  was  so  late.  But,  look- 
ing around,  I  saw  the  pilot  had  chosen  an 
excellent  spot  for  the  purpose  in  hand.  He 
had  run  so  close  to  a  wooded  knoll  in  the 
forest  that  it  was  easy  to  put  a  gangplank 
out  to  reach  the  firm  ground. 


2OO  Queer  Luck 

"As  he  stepped  toward  this  gangplank 
Captain  Foss  paused,  and,  addressing  the 
mate,  said,  so  that  we  could  all  understand 
him, '  Do  not  allow  any  one  to  go  ashore  for 
half  an  hour  after  I  do.  If  neither  I  nor 
Major  Nevins  should  return  in  that  time, 
take  four  men  and  come  after  us.'  Then 
he  turned  to  Major  Nevins,  who  was  close 
beside  him,  and  said  something  to  him 
which  no  one  else  could  hear.  The  Major 
nodded,  and  the  two  stepped  ashore  to- 
gether. 

"  Walking  side  by  side,  they  disappeared 
among  the  trees.  Almost  breathlessly,  it 
seemed  to  me,  we  all  listened  for  a  long 
time.  I  don't  know  how  long,  though  I 
noticed  the  mate  kept  his  watch  in  his 
hand.  Suddenly  we  heard  two  shots,  al- 
most together.  Then  there  was  a  pause, 
then  another  shot,  then  another,  then 
silence. 

"  Three  or  four  minutes  after  this  we  saw 


Foss  Stopped  the  Game         201 

Captain  Foss  walking  back  alone  toward  the 
boat.  Coming  on  board,  he  stopped  beside 
the  mate  and  gave  him  some  orders  in  an 
undertone,  then  passed  on  to  his  own  room. 
The  mate  saluted,  and,  calling  two  men  to 
him,  went  somewhere  aft,  presently  return- 
ing with  a  folded  cloth  in  his  hand  which 
looked  like  a  sheet.  The  two  men  brought 
a  cot  with  them,  and,  following  the  mate 
with  two  more  men,  to  whom  he  called,  they 
went  ashore  and  disappeared  in  the  woods. 

"  When  they  returned,  some  quarter  of  an 
hour  later,  there  was  a  burden  on  the  cot, 
which  all  four  men  were  carrying,  and  over 
this  burden  the  sheet  was  spread,  decently 
and  smoothly.  It  was  carried  to  Major 
Nevins's  room  and  deposited  inside.  Then 
the  door  was  locked  and  the  key  taken  to 
the  Captain's  room. 

"  The  boat  moved  on,  and  when  we 
reached  Helena,  which  was  the  next  stop- 
ping-place, Captain  Foss  went  ashore  alone. 


202  Queer  Luck 

In  an  hour's  time  he  returned  to  the  boat 
with  the  Coroner  of  the  town,  the  local  un- 
dertaker, and  two  or  three  of  his  assistants. 
The  burden  on  the  cot  was  taken  ashore, 
and  after  a  little  time  the  boat  went  on 
down  the  river. 

"  If  there  was  ever  any  prosecution  I 
didn't  hear  of  it.  All  I  know  is  that  it  was 
then  the  custom  in  Arkansas  to  allow  the 
survivor  to  go  on  his  own  recognizance  in 
any  case  in  which  the  Coroner  was  satisfied 
that  there  had  been  a  fair  fight." 


He  Played  for  His  Wife 


He  Played  for  His  Wife 

A   FREEZE-OUT  GAME  BETWEEN  A   HUSBAND 
AND  HIS  RIVAL 

"  For  my  sins,  I  suppose  it  must  have 
been,  I  lived  once  in  Egypt,"  said  the 
gray-haired  young-looking  man  in  the  club 
smoking-room,  "  and  if  Egypt  on  the  other 
side  of  the  world  is  anything  like  the  south- 
ern part  of  Illinois,  I  can  readily  understand 
how  the  children  of  Israel  found  the  wilder- 
ness preferable.  As  I  remember  the  story, 
though,  in  Pharaoh's  realm  they  had  only 
one  plague  at  a  time,  whereas  in  southern 
Illinois — however,  there  may  be  a  better 
condition  of  things  there  now,  so  there's 
nothing  to  gain  by  recalling  our  experi- 
ences. I  sincerely  hope  things  are  better, 


206  Queer  Luck 

but  I  scarcely  think  I  have  curiosity  enough 
to  go  back  and  find  out. 

"  In  our  village — for  I  was  a  part  of  it, 
and  a  part  of  it  was  mine — about  the  same 
conditions  obtained  as  in  all  the  other  small 
settlements  within  a  hundred  miles.  We 
had  a  railroad  station  and  two  trains  a  day. 
We  had  a  post-office  and  one  mail  a  day. 
We  had  a  general  store  and  a  blacksmith's 
shop  and  a  tavern,  and  we  had  a  few  private 
residences.  If  there  was  anything  else  of 
importance,  excepting  the  farmers'  wagons, 
that  came  in  with  loads  that  were  too  heavy 
for  the  horses,  and  too  often  went  back  with 
loads  that  burdened  the  farmers,  the  details 
have  escaped  my  mind.  It  was  a  typical 
southern  Illinois  village. 

"  Small  as  it  was,  there  were  two  social 
sets  in  town.  The  married  men  lived  in 
their  own  houses,  and  their  wives  visited 
one  another  and  had  their  small  festivities 
from  time  to  time  in  the  most  serene  indif- 


He  Played  for  His  Wife        207 

ference  to  the  fact  that  there  were  other  hu- 
man beings  around.  And  these  others — 
that  is,  the  unmarried  men — lived  at  the 
tavern,  or  hotel,  as  we  preferred  to  call  it, 
equally  indifferent  to  the  occurrence  of  so- 
cial functions  to  which  we  were  not  bidden. 
If,  as  occasionally  happened,  one  of  the 
married  men  broke  loose  for  a  night  or  two, 
and  spent  his  spare  time  and  money  at  the 
hotel,  he  was  tolerated,  but  no  more.  We 
felt  sorry  for  him  when  we  thought  of  his 
return  home,  but  we  had  no  yearnings  to- 
ward reciprocity  in  his  effort  to  break  down 
the  barriers. 

"  In  our  set  there  was,  it  is  true,  one 
married  woman,  but  she  did  not  count.  At 
least  we  thought  so  till  the  trouble  came. 
She  was  the  landlord's  wife.  Old  Stein,  as 
we  called  him,  though  he  was  not  over  forty, 
was  a  placid,  easy-going  German,  who  kept 
the  hotel  fairly  up  to  the  standard  of  the 
country,  and  I  think  a  trifle  above  it,  but  he 


208  Queer  Luck 

hadn't  energy  enough,  apparently,  to  make 
any  strenuous  effort  to  improve  things. 
What  was  good  enough  for  his  boarders  was 
good  enough  for  him,  and  we  were  demoral- 
ized enough  by  the  climate,  or  whatever  it 
is  that  tends  to  the  deterioration  of  man- 
kind thereabout,  to  make  no  demand  for 
unusual  luxury.  As  far  as  we  ever  noticed, 
he  had  no  remarkable  affection  for  his  wife, 
but  seemed  rather  too  indifferent  to  her  very 
pronounced  hunger  for  admiration. 

"  She  was  a  born  flirt,  but  though  she  car- 
ried her  flirtations  with  anybody  who  would 
flirt  with  her,  much  nearer  to  the  danger  line 
than  would  be  tolerated  in  a  more  strait- 
laced  community,  it  was  the  general  opinion 
among  the  boarders  that  there  was  no  real 
evil  in  her,  and,  moreover,  that  she  was 
fully  capable  of  taking  care  of  herself  in 
almost  any  emergency.  So,  though  she 
would  not  have  been  recognized  as  respect- 
able by  any  other  married  woman  in  town, 


He  Played  for  His  Wife        209 

a  fact  that  troubled  her  not,  she  was  consid- 
ered all  right  by  our  set,  and  we  looked 
upon  her  as  a  good  fellow  rather  than  as  a 
woman  bound  by  the  ordinary  rules  of  pro- 
priety. She  was  a  German  by  descent,  and 
Stein  was  German  by  birth,  but  Lena  was 
perhaps  too  thoroughly  Americanized  in  a 
poor  school. 

"  Naturally  trouble  came  of  it.  We  were 
accustomed,  as  the  people  in  most  small 
Western  towns  were  accustomed  some  years 
ago,  to  receiving  occasionally  a  visit  from 
what  we  used  to  call  a  '  cross-roads  gam- 
bler.' These  worthies  are  perhaps  the  least 
useful  and  most '  ornery '  specimens  of  hu- 
manity to  be  found  in  North  America. 
They  are  professionals  without  the  skill  or 
nerve  they  need  to  enable  them  to  hold  their 
own  among  other  professionals.  Knowing 
just  enough  to  cheat,  but  not  enough  to 
cheat  deftly,  they  travel  about  the  country, 
usually  alone,  but  sometimes  in  pairs,  stop- 
14 


2io  Queer  Luck 

ping  in  the  smallest  settlements  for  a  day  or 
a  week  at  a  time,  looking  for  victims.  No 
game  is  too  small  for  them,  though  they 
will  play  heavily  at  times,  but  they  manage 
to  live  on  their  little  skill  by  worming  their 
way  into  friendly  games  of  poker,  such  as 
are  played  all  over  the  country,  but  perhaps 
more  openly  in  the  West  than  in  the  East. 

"  When  Dick  Bradley  happened  along  our 
way  and  stopped  over  at  our  town,  we  had, 
though  we  did  not  realize  it  immediately, 
all  the  elements  of  a  drama  right  at  hand. 
It  was  not  long  before  the  drama  was  en- 
acted, and  perhaps  it  was  just  as  well  that 
we  were  not  a  little  farther  West,  for  there 
might  have  been  considerable  shooting  in 
the  last  act.  As  it  was  we  had  a  duel,  but 
that  was  fought  with  the  pasteboards  instead 
of  revolvers,  and  the  difference  was  sup- 
posed to  be  settled  by  a  freeze-out  in  the 
great  American  game. 

"  Bradley   was    an    ordinary   cross-roads 


He  Played  for  His  Wife        211 

gambler,  and  nothing  more.  He  was  a  lit- 
tle handsomer  than  the  usual  run  of  men, 
and  he  dressed  rather  better  than  custom 
demanded  in  that  part  of  the  country. 
Moreover,  he  had  a  free-and-easy  way  with 
him — it  was  a  part  of  his  stock  in  trade — 
that  was  attractive  to  anybody,  and  I  sup- 
pose especially  so  to  a  woman  like  Lena. 
At  all  events  he  hadn't  been  with  us  twenty- 
four  hours  before  there  was  a  violent  flirta- 
tion going  on  between  the  two.  We  all 
considered  that  natural  enough,  and  sup- 
posing we  knew  the  woman  thoroughly 
well,  we  thought  no  harm  of  it  at  first. 
Stein  took  no  notice  of  it  apparently,  and 
as  it  was  a  matter  that  concerned  no  one 
else  so  closely  as  it  did  him,  none  of  us  felt 
called  on  to  say  anything. 

"  Somewhat  to  our  surprise,  however, 
Bradley  stayed  on  for  more  than  a  week. 
It  wasn't  his  regular  business  that  kept  him, 
for  though  we  played  poker  every  night,  as 


212  Queer  Luck 

a  matter  of  course,  in  the  back  room  of  the 
hotel,  and  though  he  got  into  the  game, 
equally  as  a  matter  of  course,  he  didn't 
make  enough  out  of  it  to  make  it  an  object 
to  stay.  There  were  some  of  us  who  under- 
stood the  game  and  the  ordinary  tricks  of 
crooked  players  as  well  as  he  did,  and  he 
was  not  long  in  finding  out  that  he  had  to 
play  square  if  he  played  at  all.  So,  as  we 
never  played  for  big  money,  the  prospect 
was  a  poor  one  for  him.  Still  he  stayed. 
After  a  few  days  we  all,  excepting  Stein, 
began  to  see  that  he  was  staying  entirely  on 
Lena's. account.  He  was  a  bit  cautious  at 
first ;  more  so  than  she  was,  but  seeing  that 
Stein  made  no  objection  to  anything  she 
did,  but  gave  her  a  perfectly  free  foot,  the 
gambler  grew  bolder  and  bolder,  until  there 
was  no  longer  any  possibility  of  remaining 
blind  to  the  fact  that  a  scandal  impended. 
Some  of  us  talked  it  over  very  quietly  and 
carefully,  but  it  was  agreed  that  no  one 


He  Played  for  His  Wife        213 

ought  to  interfere,  since  Stein  did  not  see  fit 
to  do  so. 

"  We  had  begun  to  think  that  Stein  was 
absolutely  indifferent  and  to  regard  him 
with  considerable  contempt,  when  one 
evening  he  undeceived  us,  and  gave  us  a 
great  surprise  by  his  manner  of  doing  it.  It 
was  early  in  the  evening,  and,  though  we 
had  gathered — perhaps  a  dozen  of  us — in 
the  card-room,  we  had  not  yet  begun  play- 
ing when  Stein  came  in,  and,  after  fidget- 
ing around  for  a  minute  or  two  in  a  manner 
quite  unlike  his  usual  phlegmatic  way,  spoke 
suddenly  to  Bradley. 

"  '  Look  here,  Bradley,'  he  said  in  his 
broken  English,  '  I  must  settle  things  with 
you.  I  have  talked  things  with  my  wife, 
Lena,  already,  and  she  says  she  will  go 
away  with  you.  If  she  goes  this  world  is  no 
good  to  me  any  more,  and  you  and  I  must 
settle  if  she  goes  or  if  she  stays.  I  would 
kill  you,  but  it  would  be  foolishness  to  try 


214  Queer  Luck 

that,  for  I  am  not  a  fighting  man  and  yon 
always  carry  your  gun.  Now,  what  shall  we 
do  ?  Will  you  go  away  and  leave  me  my 
Lena,  or  will  she  go  with  you  ?  ' 

"  The  poor  Dutchman  seemed  not  to  un- 
derstand in  the  least  what  an  amazing  sort 
of  a  speech  this  was.  His  voice  trembled 
with  his  strong  emotion,  and  there  were  tears 
in  his  eyes.  The  rest  of  us  were  struck 
dumb.  I  don't  know  what  the  other  fellows 
thought,  but  I  know  that  there  came  to  me 
a  sort  of  hungry  longing  to  organize  a  tar- 
and-feather  party,  with  Dick  Bradley  as  the 
principal  guest.  And,  despite  my  contempt- 
uous pity  for  the  husband  who  showed  so 
little  manhood,  I  made  up  my  mind  that 
there  was  going  to  be  fair  play,  anyhow. 

"  Bradley  was  fairly  staggered.  He 
flushed  and  stammered,  and,  I  think,  was 
for  a  moment  about  to  say  that  he  would 
go;  but  he  pulled  himself  together,  and 
seemed  to  remember  that  as  a  bad  man 


He   Played  for  His  Wife         215 

he  had  a  reputation  to  sustain.  At  length 
he  said : 

"  '  It's  pretty  hard  to  tell  what  to  do, 
Stein.  I'd  be  willing  to  fight  you  for  the 
woman  if  you  wanted  to  do  that,  but,  as 
you  don't,  I  suppose  she'd  better  settle  it 
herself.' 

"  '  No,'  said  the  landlord.  '  She  is  fool- 
ish with  you  now,  and  she  would  have  no 
sense  about  it.  You  and  I  will  settle  it 
now.  And  what  will  you  do  ?  Will  you 
go  away  and  leave  us  ? ; 

"  Bradley  looked  around,  as  if  to  see 
what  the  crowd  thought  about  it,  and  per- 
ceiving at  a  glance  that  our  sympathies  were 
all  with  the  other  man,  he  replied : 

"  '  Well,  if  you  won't  fight,  supposing  we 
settle  it  with  the  cards.  I'll  play  you  a 
freeze-out,  $1,000  against  your  wife.  What 
do  you  say  ?  ' 

"  '  I  say  no,'  said  Stein  again,  and  we 
began  almost  to  respect  him.  '  I  will  not 


216  Queer  Luck 

play  my  wife  against  your  money,  but  I  will 
play  you  a  freeze-out  for  $1,000,  my  money 
against  yours,  and  if  you  lose,  you  will  go 
away.  And  if  I  lose,  I  will  go  away,  and 
she  may  do  what  she  likes.  Only  you  will 
play  a  square  game.' 

11 '  You  bet,  by ,  it'll  be  a  square 

game,'  said  Jack  Peters,  the  biggest  man 
and  the  best  card  player  in  the  party.  '  I 
don't  like  your  proposition,  but  that's  your 
business  and  not  mine.  But  if  you're 
going  to  play,  Stein,  you  may  be  perfectly 
sure  that  Bradley  won't  try  any  cross-roads 
tricks  in  this  freeze-out.' 

"  Bradley  seated  himself  at  the  card  table 
and  said:  *  Get  out  your  cards.'  At  the 
same  time  he  pulled  out  his  wad  and  counted 
off  the  thousand.  Stein  got  the  cards  and 
chips,  and  each  man  taking  chips  to  repre- 
sent his  pile,  the  money  was  laid  at  one 
side.  It  did  not  seem  like  an  even  contest, 
for  Stein  was  not  a  good  player.  I  was  de- 


He  Played  for  His  Wife        217 

lighted  to  notice,  however,  after  they  were 
fairly  well  going,  that  Stein  was  the  cooler 
of  the  two.  Bradley,  I  suppose,  was  a  bit 
rattled  by  the  consciousness  that  we  were 
watching  his  play  suspiciously. 

"  Bradley  tried  at  first  to  force  the  play, 
and  once  or  twice  caught  Stein  for  consid- 
erable money,  but  the  game  went  on  for 
perhaps  twenty  minutes  without  anything 
like  a  decisive  result.  Suddenly,  as  Stein 
was  about  to  cut  the  cards,  Jack  Peters  ex- 
claimed : 

"  '  Shuffle  'em,  Stein  ! ' 

" '  Can't  Stein  play  his  own  game?' 
asked  Bradley. 

"  '  I  reckon  he  can,'  said  Peters,  '  but  in 
case  the  cards  should  happen  to  be  stacked 
against  him,  and  I  found  it  out,  there'd  be 
a  lynching  right  here  in  this  town  to-night. 
I  don't  want  that  to  happen,  so  I  thought 
I'd  make  sure.' 

"  It  was  an  unfair  trick,  for  Bradley  had 


218  Queer  Luck 

not  stacked  the  cards.  He  hadn't  dared  to. 
But  Peters  told  me  afterward  that  he  did 
it  to  '  throw  a  scare  '  into  Bradley  if  he 
could.  He  succeeded,  for  the  gambler  lost 
his  nerve  when  he  looked  around  once  more, 
while  Stein  remained  as  cool  as  before.  He 
nodded  and  shuffled  the  cards  and  the  game 
went  on. 

"  The  end  came  suddenly.  It  was  a  flush 
against  a  full,  and  Stein  held  the  full  and 
swept  the  board.  There  was  a  moment's 
silence,  and  then  Bradley  said  with  a  short 
laugh  : 

"  '  Well,  I've  lost,  and  I'll  leave  town 
on  the  morning  train.  That'll  do,  I  sup- 
pose, won't  it  ?' 

11 1  Yes,  that'll  do,'  said  Stein,  gravely. 
He  had  won  in  the  outrageous  contest,  and 
I  expected  to  see  him  greatly  elated,  but 
instead  he  seemed  curiously  depressed. 
And  as  the  situation  was  decidedly  embar- 
rassing for  all  hands  we  went  to  bed  uncom- 


He  Played  for  His  Wife        219 

monly  early  that  night,  so  that  everybody 
was  up  in  time  next  morning  to  see  Bradley 
go  on  the  early  train  as  he  had  agreed  to 
do." 

"  Well,  yes,"  said  the  gray-haired  young- 
looking  man,  in  answer  to  a  question, 
"  that  is  the  end  of  the  story,  as  far  as  the 
poker  part  of  it  goes.  Of  course  there  was 
this  sequel.  It  was  inevitable,  I  suppose. 
Lena  followed  Bradley  a  day  or  two  after- 
ward, and  Stein  drank  himself  to  death." 


The  Club's  Last  Game 


The  Club's  Last  Game 

IT  TAUGHT  AN  INTERESTING  MORAL  ABOUT 
RAISING   THE  LIMIT 

"  It  is  sometimes  hard  to  draw  the  line 
between  a  professional  gambler  and  an- 
other," said  the  gray-haired  young-looking 
man  in  the  club  smoking-room.  "  And 
even  if  you  do  succeed  in  making  the  dis- 
tinction clear,  the  comparison  isn't  always 
to  the  detriment  of  the  professional.  I  re- 
member an  instance  in  a  poker  club  to 
which  I  once  belonged,  which  was  interest- 
ing enough,  though  it  pointed  no  particular 
moral  that  I  know  of,  unless  it  was  by  re- 
newing the  old  doubt  whether  the  devil  is 
always  as  black  as  he  is  painted. 

"  Our  club  was  rather  a  curious  one  in 
some  respects,  though  we  did  not  realize  it 


224  Queer  Luck 

at  the  time.  It  began  with  a  little  game  in 
one  of  the  New  England  cities  where  you 
have  to  keep  very  quiet  about  your  card 
playing  unless  you  don't  give  a  rap  for  your 
standing  in  the  business  community,  to  say 
nothing  of  your  social  position.  I  don't 
know  that  people  are  so  very  much  better  in 
such  communities  than  they  are  elsewhere, 
but  there  is  a  sort  of  general  bluff  made  by 
common  consent  that  shuts  out  open  and 
flagrant  offenders  from  companionship  with 
those  who  have  more  regard  for  '  the  speech 
of  people.' 

"  There  were  six  of  us  in  the  party  that 
used  to  meet  every  Saturday  night  at  one  an- 
other's rooms,  and  it  was  as  pleasant  and  har- 
monious a  circle  as  I  ever  joined.  We  were 
all  young  business  men,  unmarried  and  pros- 
perous, and  all  of  excellent  standing  at  that 
time.  There  was  never  a  quarrel  among  us, 
in  all  our  play,  and  for  a  long  time  the  play 
was  never  heavy  enough  to  hurt  even  the 


The  Club's  Last   Game         225 

worst  loser.  It  was  almost  always  a  fifty- 
cent  limit,  though  we  would  often  disregard 
the  limit  in  the  single  round  of  consolation 
jack-pots  with  which  we  concluded  every 
evening's  play. 

"  One  of  the  number,  whom  I  will  call 
George,  for  I  can't  give  surnames  in  this 
story,  because  it  is  a  true  one,  was  trans-' 
f erred  by  the  railroad  company  for  which 
he  worked  to  another  city,  forty  odd  miles 
away.  Then  Harry  had  an  offer  of  a  situa- 
tion in  a  large  wholesale  house  in  another 
direction,  and  sold  out  his  business  to  ac- 
cept it.  Eli  married  a  rich  girl  in  still 
another  place,  and  he  moved  away,  leaving 
only  three  of  us  in  the  same  town,  yet  the 
Saturday  evening  games  went  on  almost 
without  interruption.  Eli  was,  naturally 
enough,  oftenest  absent,  but  George  and 
Harry  would  come  in  by  rail,  so  that  we 
always  had  four  and  almost  always  five  at 
the  table.  Of  course,  as  the  old  friendship 
15 


226  Queer  Luck 

was  as  warm  as  ever,  we  enjoyed  the  re- 
unions even  more  keenly  than  we  had. 
After  a  time  the  play  grew  harder.  The 
limit  was  usually  $2,  and  occasionally  as 
high  as  $5,  while  it  was  lifted  off  altogether 
in  the  consolation  pots,  so  that  it  was  not 
unusual  for  one  or  two  of  us  to  be  several 
hundred  dollars  ahead  or  behind  at  the  end 
of  the  evening. 

"  Things  went  on  this  way  for  perhaps  a 
couple  of  years  before  the  smash  came,  and 
while  some  of  us  were  not  specially  harmed 
by  it,  there  is  no  doubt  that  our  club  did 
work  serious  mischief  to  at  least  two  of  the 
party.  We  didn't  know  about  it  until 
afterward,  but  it  was  true  that  Harry  had 
become  so  infatuated  with  cards  that  he  had 
neglected  his  business  and  had  lost  his  situ- 
ation in  the  wholesale  house,  and  then, 
instead  of  trying  to  get  employment  else- 
where, had  devoted  himself  entirely  to 
gambling,  and  had  become  a  full-fledged 


The  Club's  Last  Game         227 

professional.  None  of  us  had  happened  to 
learn  of  his  discharge,  and  as  he  said  nothing 
to  us  about  it,  we  never  suspected  the  truth 
till  we  learned  it  very  strangely.  He  con- 
tinued meeting  with  us,  as  usual,  and  in 
our  company,  at  least,  he  never  played  any- 
thing but  a  straight  game. 

"  As  for  George,  we  did  know  that  he  was 
playing  a  great  deal,  aside  from  his  games 
with  us,  for  he  told  us  about  it  and  we  knew 
to  our  sorrow  that  he  was  particularly  un- 
lucky. He  had  some  means,  outside  of  his 
very  good  salary,  so  we  didn't  suspect  that 
he  was  financially  involved.  We  did  know, 
however,  that  he  played  in  the  heaviest 
games  he  could  get  into,  and  on  more  than 
one  occasion  he  traveled  two  or  three  hun- 
dred miles  in  order  to  sit  in  at  some  game 
that  he  would  hear  of,  where  the  stakes 
were  likely  to  be  unusually  large.  The 
railroad  company  kept  him  on  the  go  a  good 
part  of  the  time,  so  he  was  able  to  manage 


228  Queer  Luck 

this  without  really  neglecting  his  work,  and 
if  the  officials  of  the  road  had  learned  of  his 
gambling  habits  they  either  underestimated 
the  importance  of  them  or  they  valued 
George's  .services  very  highly,  for  he  was 
promoted,  not  once,  but  two  or  three  times. 
We  therefore  had  a  professional  among  us 
without  knowing  it,  and  another  man  who 
was  playing  further  beyond  his  limit  than  we 
dreamed  of,  and  still  our  little  game  went 
on,  as  pleasantly  and  serenely  as  if  we  were 
not  drifting  into  a  tragedy. 

"  One  particular  summer  night  we  had  a 
full  table.  Each  one  of  the  six  was  there, 
and  all  seemed  unusually  gay.  The  game 
was  a  good  one,  too,  for  the  cards  ran  high 
and  the  luck  ran  from  one  to  the  other 
most  delightfully.  We  started  with  the  usual 
two-dollar  limit,  but  it  was  broken  two  or 
three  times  without  any  remonstrance,  so 
that  after  a  couple  of  hours  we  were  playing 
without  any  limit.  Bets  of  $10  and  even 


The  Club's  Last  Game         229 

$20  were  made  frequently,  and  several  times 
there  was  $100  in  a  jack-pot  before  cards 
were  drawn. 

"  Eli  had  to  go  home  by  a  train  that  went 
through  about  i  130  o'clock,  so  the  consola- 
tion pots  were  played  a  little  before  one. 
We  had  been  playing  about  four  hours  then, 
and  the  luck  had  been  running  against 
George  for  half  an  hour.  It  was  affecting 
him,  too,  and  instead  of  waiting  for  a  turn 
he  had  been  trying  to  force  it,  so  that  he 
was  considerably  dipped,  and  I  for  one  was 
hoping  that  he  would  recoup  in  one  or  two 
pots  in  the  last  round.  He  didn't,  though. 
On  the  contrary,  he  came  into  each  of  the 
first  five,  standing  all  the  raises  before  the 
draw,  and  drawing  to  one  card,  on  the 
chance  of  getting  an  accidental  hand.  It 
was  wretchedly  poor  play,  of  course,  but 
he  was  trying  desperately  to  force  the  luck. 

"  On  the  last  deal  I  thought  he  had  a 
chance,  for  he  opened  the  pot  for  $20.  It 


230  Queer  Luck 

had  gone  around  for  three  or  four  deals,  so 
it  was  a  good  pot  to  start  with,  and  after  it 
was  opened  it  grew  rapidly.  We  all  came 
in,  and  Harry  raised  it  ten.  George  went 
back  at  him  with  twenty  more,  and  we  all 
came  in. 

"  On  the  draw  George  took  two  cards, 
Harry  two,  and  Eli  one.  The  rest  of  us 
took  three  each,  but  as  none  of  us  bettered 
his  pair,  we  dropped  our  cards,  leaving  the 
three  to  fight  it  out.  George  bet  fifty,  and 
Eli,  who  sat  next,  raised  it  fifty.  Harry 
came  in  and  raised  it  ten.  It  looked  a 
little  queer,  but  I  remembered  then  that 
Harry  had  been  playing  more  moderately 
than  any  of  the  rest  of  us  all  the  evening. 
George  put  up  fifty  more,  and  Eli  made 
good.  He  had  filled  a  small  flush,  but 
sitting  between  two  raisers  he  didn't  care 
to  play  too  hard  on  it.  Harry  raised  it  ten 
again,  and  George  showed  his  excitement 
plainly. 


The  Club's  Last  Game         231 

"  '  A  hundred  better,'  he  almost  shouted, 
putting  up  the  money. 

"  Eli  laid  his  hand  on  the  table,  but 
Harry  put  up  a  hundred  and  ten. 

"  '  Another  hundred,'  said  George,  now 
fairly  trembling. 

"  '  Ten  more,'  said  Harry,  as  cool  as  ever. 

"  '  Five  hundred  better,'  exclaimed 
George. 

"  <  Ten  more.' 

"'A  thousand  better,'  said  George,  and 
Harry  hesitated. 

"  '  I  have  you  beaten,  George,'  he  said, 
after  a  moment,  '  but  I  don't  want  to  play 
any  higher.  This  is  getting  altogether  too 
heavy  for  our  party.  I'll  call  you.' 

"  '  It  isn't  too  heavy  for  me,'  said  George, 
almost  insultingly.  '  I'll  go  you  another 
thousand  on  my  hand  if  you  will  stand  it.' 

"  '  No,'  said  Harry,  still  as  cool  as  possi- 
ble. '  I  won't  go  any  higher.  I  have  called 
you.' 


232  Queer  Luck 

"  George  laid  down  an  ace  full,  and 
looked  with  confident  expectation  to  see 
Harry  surrender,  but  instead  he  showed 
down  four  eights.  '  I  was  pretty  sure,'  he 
said  quietly. 

"  George's  face  turned  white,  and  we  all 
saw  that  he  was  hard  hit,  though  we  didn't 
suspect  even  then  that  it  was  so  serious  as  it 
was. 

"  '  I'll  have  to  give  you  a  check  for  that 
last  thousand,'  he  said,  faltering,  for  he  had 
not  put  up  the  money  on  the  last  bet.  We 
had  always  settled  up  before  separating  at 
night,  but  it  was  not  unusual  for  checks  to 
pass  among  us,  though  we  had  never  had  so 
much  money  up  before. 

"  '  That's  all  right,'  said  Harry,  and  to 
my  surprise  his  voice  trembled  when  he 
spoke.  '  The  fact  is,'  he  continued  after  he 
had  swallowed  once  or  twice  in  the  effort  to 
get  control  of  himself — '  the  fact  is,  I'm  not 
going  to  take  your  money,  George.  I  have 


The  Club's  Last  Game         233 

been  playing  this  game  for  fun,  and  I  don't 
think  I  was  doing  you  fellows  any  harm  by 
playing  with  you,  for  I  have  always  played 
square,  and  I've  never  taken  any  of  your 
money  to  speak  of ;  but  the  fact  is,  I  have 
been  a  professional  gambler  for  a  year  past, 
and  I  have  been  sailing  under  false  colors. 
I  don't  say  that  I  wouldn't  do  that  any- 
where else,  but  I  wouldn't  do  it  among  my 
old  friends.  Take  back  your  money, 
George.  I  don't  believe  you  can  afford  to 
lose  it,  and  I  wouldn't  take  it  if  you  could.' 

"  This  was  sufficiently  surprising,  but 
what  George  said  was  even  more  so,  to  the 
rest  of  us,  for  we  knew  that  he  wasn't  above 
playing  with  professionals  elsewhere. 

"  '  I  wouldn't  take  it  back,'  he  said  with 
a  sneer,  '  if  the  game  had  been  above  board, 
but  if,  as  you  say,  you  have  been  sailing 
under  false  colors,  I  think  I  can  take  it 
without  any  loss  of  self-respect.'  And  he 
pocketed  the  money  which  Harry  pushed 


234  Queer  Luck 

over  to  him,  after  deducting  what  he  himself 
had  put  in. 

"  It  was  the  last  game  we  ever  played  to- 
gether, and  we  broke  up  with  a  feeling  of 
constraint  that  we  had  never  had  before. 
Our  good-nights  were  said  in  the  usual 
words,  but  the  tone  was  that  of  curious  em- 
barrassment. We  could  not  feel  the  same 
toward  either  of  the  two,  but  I  think  we  all 
felt  far  more  respect  for  Harry  than  we  did 
for  George. 

"  I  am  quite  sure  we  all  did  after  we  read 
in  the  papers  two  weeks  later  that  George 
had  absconded  with  a  considerable  amount 
of  the  company's  money.  It  appeared 
from  the  published  accounts  that  he  had 
been  a  defaulter  for  some  months,  though 
he  had  concealed  the  fact  by  falsifying  his 
books,  so  that  he  was  really  playing  with 
stolen  money  when  he  pretended  a  superior- 
ity to  Harry. 

"  I  never  saw  either  of  the  two  men  again, 


The  Club's  Last  Game         235 

and  as  I  tell  you,  we  never  had  another 
meeting  of  the  club.  As  for  me,  I  have 
never  played  poker  since  for  any  consider- 
able stakes.  When  the  game  gets  so  large 
that  it  is  a  question  of  money  instead  of  the 
fun  of  the  game  itself,  I  always  drop  out." 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

RENEWED  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  IMMEDIATE 
RECALL 


LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  DAVIS 

Book  Slip-50m-9.'70  (N9877s8)458 — A-31/5,6 


N9  816963 

Curtis,  D,A, 
Queer  luck. 


PS3505 

U85 

Q8 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


